In this episode of the Ducks Unlimited podcast, host Matt Harrison sits down with longtime friend Jim Ronquest to share their favorite hunting stories. They reflect on the busy months following duck season and discuss the upcoming turkey season. As they reminisce about past adventures, listeners can expect a blend of entertaining anecdotes and insights into the world of hunting. Tune in for a lively conversation filled with camaraderie and anticipation for the spring season ahead!
Creators & Guests
Host
Matt Harrison
DUPodcast Outdoor Host
What is Ducks Unlimited Podcast?
Ducks Unlimited Podcast is a constant discussion of all things waterfowl; from in-depth hunting tips and tactics, to waterfowl biology, research, science, and habitat updates. The DU Podcast is the go-to resource for waterfowl hunters and conservationists. Ducks Unlimited is the world's leader in wetlands conservation.
Matt Harrison: Hey everyone, welcome back to the Ducks Unlimited podcast. I'm your host, Matt Harrison. And today with me, we have joining with us again, Mr. Jim Ronquest Mr. Jim is a true friend of mine and somebody I always enjoy getting to sit down with and tell hunting stories. And part of what we're going to do with the podcast today is do exactly that. Share some of our favorite hunting stories, maybe some scary hunting stories that we've encountered. but just hunting stories in general. But before we get in to telling those stories, Mr. Jim, how you been?
Jim Ronquest: Man, I've been good, buddy.
Matt Harrison: Been busy, but I've been good. What about yourself? Same, busy, but good. You know, finally wrapped up duck season, uh, had a great duck season, then got into show season, had shot show, you know, NWTF, Seaweed, had all the shows. So it's been, it's been good, but we finally kind of hit that little bit of a break, but now we got turkey season coming up.
Jim Ronquest: blooming up very quickly a couple weeks off. You know, I used to, I used to really like February because it was slow. Um, and then people would complain, there ain't nothing to do in February. Well, man, February has been a whirlwind. So I'm ready to slow down for a couple of weeks, maybe go catch some crappies. I know. And start chasing some long beards. Are you excited for turkey season?
Matt Harrison: Like, do you have some big plans coming up? I do. I'm looking forward to this spring.
Jim Ronquest: Where are you going to get to go hunt? Man, I'm getting to go Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, Missouri. Wow. Wisconsin. Need to make a stop in Mississippi. I got a Mississippi invite too. So that may be, I may start off in Mississippi. So, because they started on March 15th. Yeah. So that is 15 days away. That's right here.
Matt Harrison: I mean, with the show, like, you know, used to, you had that lull between duck season and turkey season and you're just like, when can I hunt something? When can I hunt something? Well, now with all the shows we have to attend and go to, it's, you look up and like you said, it's, I mean, we're pretty much in March and it's right here.
Jim Ronquest: Tomorrow's first day of March and I'm ready for having a weekend to slow down. I'm tired of being a big crowd, um, and bumping into people. I want to kind of breathe just a little bit.
Matt Harrison: I get it. I totally do. Well, talk a little bit about your duck season. How did it finish up for you? Was it a good season, mediocre season, not a good season?
Jim Ronquest: You know, for me, it wasn't, based on harvest numbers anyway, if that's not necessarily the fair way to put it. I had a great season in, in as far as making new friends and getting an opportunity to spend time outdoors. But harvest number wise was probably one of my slowest in the past several years. Some of that was because, you know, We just, you know, was kind of locked into where we were hunting, wasn't chasing ducks, going to them. So, you know, when it was slow, it was slow. When it was better, it was better. So we had some, certainly had some highlights, but we had some off days too. And I think a lot of folks in my area there had. All my buddies, for the most part, were off a little bit. You know, weren't quite wide open. Now I've talked to some folks that's had the best season of their life. And you get that every year, right? You'll get those folks that say, man, it's the best duck season I've had in 25 years. That's right. And then you have other folks, man. Worst in 25 years. Worst duck season.
Matt Harrison: And that just, we see more and more of that nowadays. I got a question for you, and this was not planned. This was not pre-thought of. I just thought about it while we were sitting here talking. And on one of the previous podcasts in our Year in Review with Dr. Mike and Katie and myself, we talked about wood ducks. And we talked about if we saw a good bit of wood ducks, if we didn't, and a lot of people have tied that into the acorns. So, Acorn Drops, did you see many wood ducks where you hunted? Because where I did, I didn't hardly see any wood ducks. But Katie, where she hunts, she said that the wood duck saves her season. So, did you see many wood ducks?
Jim Ronquest: I did. I saw gobs of wood ducks in the fields. Fields? Yes. gobs of wood ducks in the fields. A buddy of mine that hunts in West Tennessee, same deal, gobs of wood ducks. We had a field you'd pull in and you'd run steady wood ducks out of it. We had a track of woods that had ducks early, wood ducks early, but acorn crop in the Biomeda Basin was Horrible. The red oak acorn crop was bad. So I think you've seen a lot of wood ducks move to the fields, at least in our part of the world. We had some stuff up along Cache River that had piles of wood ducks in them in the mornings. Now you'd shoot a couple, but they weren't really saving your season. But boy, when you were going in the field or early in the morning, you'd run gazillion felt like of wood ducks out.
Matt Harrison: Well, that may have been why I didn't see the amount, you know, I hunted mostly woods this year. And where we were, they're just, we had a hunt or two, you know, where we're like, man, that's a lot of wood ducks. But I think it felt like it was a lot of wood ducks because we hadn't seen any wood ducks. But, uh, that was, that's been kind of interesting to me, just kind of see what people, you know, what they saw with the wood duck amount, because
Jim Ronquest: Been several people talking about seeing the big piles of wood ducks in the field. That guy sent me some pictures yesterday of a property that they're looking at, and they had game cameras up in a couple of holes. I'm talking, it was full of ducks, but you get to looking at it, it's solid wood ducks across the hole. Well, this was in the woods. But we saw tons in the fields too, just like crazy amounts of those.
Matt Harrison: That's nuts. What about show season? Y'all just wrapped up NWTF, went over there, had a good show I heard, had some really cool products that y'all just released. Can you talk about a little?
Jim Ronquest: Man, we did. And NWTF is such a, I'm not going to say madhouse, but there's a lot of people come to NWTF. A lot. And of course, I love to turkey hunt as much as I duck hunt. So it's a kind of a, it's a, it's a natural mesh. There's a lot of duck hunters there also. So with that in mind, we launched, um, some of our new BMF lineup of waders and jackets for fall 25 at NWTF. And let me tell y'all, they are sleek. They're slick, man. There's a lot of people want to come look at them, touch them, feel them, smell them, try them on, you know. And everybody's excited about it. Myself included. I've got to wear them this duck season. We tried to test them out pretty hard. So far, so good. Wow. Now, when will those be available? Roughly around the 1st of July, 1st to middle of July. Okay, so, I mean… Roughly speaking, I don't know the exact date, but that'll… Sometimes summer. Yeah, that'll get you in the ballpark. Definitely by the DUX Expo, we should have… Wow. We should be loaded up. I'm excited. Yeah, man.
Matt Harrison: I am too.
Jim Ronquest: I'm so excited. I'm excited about what people say and think. Look, there's a lot of good product out there. Don't get me wrong. For sure. I feel we're in the game here.
Matt Harrison: It's pretty cool. No doubt. And you've done a good job with that. I'm not just saying it because you're sitting here, but you've really brought in some good ideas to Drake and implemented them, and it's been really cool to see what y'all have.
Jim Ronquest: Well, it's not just me. For sure. The product team under Justin Carpenter and Kermit, that's who really deserves it. I get to sit at the table and talk about this or that, but the thing I like the best about them, and some folks argue it, I don't like zippers. where I'm running my hands in and out of pockets, because your hands get dry during the next season. You're raking it, you know, you're bleeding, you know, whatnot. So, we're using magnets in a lot of those kind of places, and we got some really cool attachment points and buckles.
Matt Harrison: I think people are going to like them. Those buckles are probably one of the coolest features to me on the I got to see a pair in person and like, you know, a lot of waders have plastic buckles and they can get busted super easy. If you taking your waders off and you're strapped to the ground, you step on that buckle and it busts. It's, but these, the BMS, they, they have some cool features to them. I'm excited. I'm excited to wear them.
Jim Ronquest: Yeah. I tell you that, um, now I have worn other brands and I have never had cold feet with quality waders. Yeah. I'm. blown away by how warm the boots are. When we got cold, with a good pair of wool socks, if you were walking much, your feet felt hot, but yet they didn't sweat terribly bad. Justin and I commented on that, how your feet feel like they're smoking hot, but you take your boots off, you're not bad sweaty. That kind of can be a killer with keeping your feet warm. If you get them too warm too quick, you're done. You know, you're done. I'm really pleased with them. The guys have done a good job. There's a couple tweaks for the final run, but I think they're going to be a-okay. Wow. I'm excited. Thank you.
Matt Harrison: Absolutely. Well, now we're going to kind of dive off into some stories. Story time. with Jim Ronquest Can we get a fire out? The best way to do this is over a cup of ice and a fire. Man, there ain't no doubt. Some of my just most fun times around Duck Camp is hearing stories and I know I've had the privilege to chase turkeys with you, ducks with you, eat at Huddle House after an unsuccessful I've had the opportunity to hear some of those stories, but not everybody else is as lucky as I am to get to hear some of those. So I'm excited just to kind of talk about some of the stories you have to share with our listeners today. But one of the stories we're going to talk about is Retriever story. I know that you are a big time Retriever guy, like you and your, and your family. You've had some really good dogs over the years. You've had some amazing dogs. And one of the stories that you have for us today includes a dog. So I'm going to give the floor to you to explain to our listeners one of the cool dog stories that you have.
Jim Ronquest: Cool deal. And I got several on all my dogs, even my current ones. And I've been blessed, to your point, to have some fine, fine animals. This particular one that comes to mind, I have told it before publicly. It's one of my favorites. It, one, tells to a dog's memory that they can think a little bit, you know. So, little old dog I hunted all the time when I, we were in the guide business back in the Richington guide service days. We, we had one of our private places, it was a big old deadening. Um, and it was pretty successful, pretty consistent spot in, in its time. Um, anyway, we'd been shooting ducks and it is low water year, so it was muddy. It's a deadening. You know, it's a swamp.
Matt Harrison: You know, they're not easy to get around. It's not ideal hunting.
Jim Ronquest: But boy, ducks. can like them pretty good. So anyway, we'd shot into a bunch of ducks and the dog I was hunting was a little master hunter female by the name of Katie. Her, uh, registered name was Buy Me The Katie M8. Um, and neat little dog, all 50 pounds of her, you know, and she was mad at those ducks. Um, she was kind of a pain to hunt with cause she was so excited, she'd whine, but boy, she, she was a hunter. Yeah. Duck hit the water. It was, my money's on her every time. So anyway, we'd shot into a bunch of ducks and sent Katie and she's picking them up and she's getting this one and that one she's getting. And she was, had a pretty good cripple chase and she was one of the better cripple dogs I've had. Um, she got a pretty good cripple chase with a mattered hen and the water probably wasn't, I don't know, we'll call it maybe knee deep, you know, mud's probably another foot deep. And there was some brush and stuff there, and she'd picked them all up, and she went and got them, and she chased this old hen around. Man, it was— I was surprised the old hen was winning. Really was. That surprised me that she didn't get it. And Katie come back, and I would scold her a little bit, just playing with her. She knew us. Miss Katie, where's that duck at? Did you let that duck beat you? You surely didn't let that duck beat you, did you? Boy, she'd cowhead. She got up on the dog stand, and we shot a few more ducks and was getting close to finishing out. And I noticed she kept looking over there towards where she'd last been on that duck. And she, she locked in and I was, we was talking, I said, look at this silly dog. What is she looking at? And it kind of clicked to me what it was. She was, she was locked in. And I finally just said, Katie. And she run out there and she got right around the last place she was on that duck, there's a little old stump and some weeds there. And I seen her start pawing. And then she sat down, she kind of scooted up, she kind of sat down on her, so she could use both them front feet. And she started pawing right there. And I seen her. stick her head, then she stuck her head down and she pulled that mattered hen up, grass, mud and all. Dude, what? That was crazy. Are you serious? She dug. She dug, she dug her out there. She knew she was there and she sniffed around and I seen her sniffing. Um, and when she's back on them haunches and started pawing, I said, look at here. And she, she come out with it. That, that's probably, oh, that's not necessarily a really high tech mark or a really great blind retrieve, but that's a, that's knowing where one's at and having the confidence to go find it.
Matt Harrison: Oh, that reminds me of a story. The first ever duck that I shot. Hilarious story. We didn't have a dog at the time, so my brother was the dog, you know. I know how it goes. So, we were hunting the Leaf River, just, you know, some bends in the river there, in the Leaf River near Raleigh, Mississippi, and just chasing wood ducks, you know. Early morning flight, we're out there, dark, you know, set up. So, anyway, here they come, buddy. You know, you can hear them screaming through the woods, some wood duck. So anyway, we have about a group of, you know, three or four come in, and I'm about eight years old, and just, boom, you know, smoked one, and boom, smoked another one. So I got the one, you know, that was in front of us. Well, one had kind of, you know, fluttered down on the other side of the, on the river there, and we were like, Well, we got to go after it, you know, we believe in if it goes down, we're going to hunt it until we can't hunt anymore. So anyway, my brother finds a log, you know, we didn't have waders, we didn't have nothing. So my brother finds a log, he crosses the log, gets to the other side. Well, anyway, he had kind of did like Miss Katie did, just kind of sniffed it out, you know, over there, of course, and he kind of found some feathers. Well, anyway, he saw where some feathers had went up into this blowdown. And this blowdown was a fresh blowdown, okay, you know. Big old oak tree flipped up, still had all the mud on the bottom of the tree, you know. And you know those little, them little root canals go all the way up in there. So, this was not wise, okay, but my brother says, I know that duck's in there. So anyway, he starts taking off his hat, his jacket, and he said, I'm going in that hole after that duck. And I was like, go on if you want to. So sure enough, man, he gets about half of his body down in that. Reaches his hand in there, just pulls straight feathers. Reaches in there. Sure enough, that duck was in that hole in that cavity. He, but about like Miss Katie in there just digging out, you know, trying to get, he came out just dirt everywhere. You'd think he was in the trenches. Oh yeah, he was in there, but it was just funny, you know, looking back on.
Jim Ronquest: It's those kinds of things are the things you remember, you know. I can think of other really cool dog retrieves that just comes to mind. But everybody gets caught up in the how many a lot of times. Well, you know, if you think back about stuff like that, something, something cool like that, you'll remember. Don't remember how many you killed that day.
Matt Harrison: 100%.
Matt Harrison: I could not tell you. If I'm not mistaken, we shot like two. But that memory, that was my first ducks ever. You know, just to see my brother give everything he had to try to get that dog. But I have another real quick cool story about after that scenario, my brother was like, I'm gonna get us a dog, you know, we're gonna get us a dog. So anyway, we were hunting again near Raleigh, Mississippi. It was a little slew though off the Leaf River. Anyway, we, my brother got a dog named Bale. Lady Bale of Magee was her name. She had just passed about six months ago. We were going to take her out. It was just me, my brother, and Bale. It was just us. And first ever hunt, sure enough, we had some wood ducks come in right at light. You know, I can't really see them. It's shooting time, but just dust. You know how they get below the trees and you're like, where are they at? Well, anyway, I saw one. Boom, smoked it. And here goes Bale beside us. And my brother's like, you know, Bale, What's Belle's first hunt? Belle couldn't see anything about like I couldn't, you know? And anyway, she started getting a little bit lighter and I literally told my brother, I said, man, my luck, that duck's banded, you know? So anyway, I said, I tell you what, Michael said, why don't you shoot over the duck, make a splash, Belle will see it and we'll send her out there. Said sure enough, I did, shot. Bell went out there, she comes back, getting up on the bank. Sure enough, a banded wood duck. It was her first ever retrieve, and the band was banded on that duck on 12-12-12. How cool is that? In Geneva, Illinois, in 2008. And it was actually a write-a-letter-to band, and it's the only one I've ever killed. So, and that was her first ever retrieve. That is cool. It's, it's a story. That's again, I couldn't tell you how many ducks we shot that morning. But you remember that banter? I remember it. I remember. Amen. It's the little things that go a long way for sure. No doubt. And you've had some other things happen during hunts that weren't aren't, or were not as enjoyable.
Jim Ronquest: Still memory makers, though.
Matt Harrison: Yeah, but you've had some scenarios during hunting ducks that weren't that fun. And I've heard a story about a time that you may have lost your hat.
Jim Ronquest: Oh, that was a tough one. That was a… That was a spooky one right there. So yeah, so it's all because of probably my dog wasn't there. So Miss Katie was off training with my buddy Ron Lagarste at the time. And we were having one of them big days on the creek. We were shooting ducks. It was a big day. And I had been out around that swamp. I had picking up birds for everybody, you know, and I was getting birds sorted out of who shot what duck and whatnot. And I'm thinking, my hands are full. And I'm walking back towards the blinds. So let's say where I'm at right now, my back's facing the decoys and the blinds up here. In front of you. In front of me. And there's guys over here and there's two blinds. There's a dry blind and a wet blind. I was hunted in the middle. Well, I'm walking forward and I see the guy, somebody said, be still. And I see some ducks lighting to my left. And I seen the guy in front of me, kind of about where you're at, maybe a little bit further. Anyway, I seen him start to mount his gun. And I'm like, no, no, no, no. Wham, wham. And I felt heat on my face. My hat fell off. I remember dropping the ducks. And I remember just covering my face just like that. Are you serious? And I just stood there a minute with my face covered. I was just, and I remember thinking, gosh, I was afraid to move my hands away from my face. You thought you were shot. I thought I was shot. I didn't feel anything other than the heat, and my hat was gone, but I was like, I remember thinking, okay, what's this gonna be? And I pulled my hands away, and that's when you think you'd go punch somebody in the nose. No, my knees went to jello. You probably couldn't even say anything either. I couldn't, I couldn't. I finally got, I got to the blind, I got propped up there so I wouldn't fall down, and I sat there for a little bit to get my, I let everything kind of get back to working and all the time my ears are going woo, woo, woo, you know. I was kind of addled there for just a minute. Everything turned out okay and the guy thought he was shooting safe and I guess if just close enough I was feeling the gas. Yeah. And he was, you know, I didn't, I felt the heat. And there's just enough gas there, may have jerked my head or something, but my hat come off. There's a little frayed spot right there. Um, but that was, that was probably this one of the scariest moments I've ever had with a shotgun. I've seen some others. Um, but that fellow was bad morning to shoot a duck. So once we got, I got my composure back with the hunt was over for that day. All right, boys, we're going, we're going to call this one.
Matt Harrison: You know, and this is a great learning lesson for all of our listeners, too. You know, when you're any type of bird hunting, duck hunting, dove hunting, snipe hunting, pheasant hunting, quail hunting, whatever, it is so important to realize at all times you should know where people are. where your surroundings are, and where your shooting lanes are. You know, a lot of people forget that. And a lot of, and it's no knock whatsoever to new duck hunters. Please don't hear it like that. But like, a lot of the accidents that do happen are people that have never been taught. They don't know. Like that guy, he may have been a well-educated duck hunter, and he may not have been. Who knows? But one thing that we always make sure anytime we're hunting with somebody is if they're new, it's like, we go through a gun, you know. And you may give it and they still don't take it.
Jim Ronquest: It doesn't. I, and I'm, I got, I guess we'll call it, uh, PTSD over it. So if somebody shoots that I don't, I'm not expecting the shot, I'm not aware of, I kind of, I'm pretty, I'm pretty jumpy. Um, but if you swing across, you know, man, I've come here several times this year hunting in Pittsburgh. I seen barrels coming and I just sat down, you know, grab my dog and I just sat down.
Matt Harrison: No doubt.
Jim Ronquest: And that's, that's part of it, I guess. But boy, you know, hey, hey guys, shoot your lane. 10 to 2, think where you are. If you're, if you're a right-handed shooter and you're left-handed to the pitch, sure, you can swing hard to the left. If you're a right-handed shooter, please don't try to swing to your right.
Matt Harrison: You know, just, and that's really the case, especially if you're hunting any type of layout blind or in a blind itself, is most of the time, you're shoulder to shoulder with somebody. So, you're really and truly, your lane isn't that big. You know what I mean? Like, you really got about 11 to 1, 11 to 2, you know, lane to shoot in, and that's pretty much it. You know, you can't really swing over here, because odds are, you got somebody there that's going to have that shot covered. So, it's extremely important. You know, once you kind of get out in the woods and open it up a little bit and you only have two or three people, your, your lane may widen up a little bit, but anytime you're shoulder to shoulder with somebody, goodness, it can be. It can be.
Jim Ronquest: Fortunately though, if you're closer, you got a little bit more barrel control there.
Matt Harrison: Yeah.
Jim Ronquest: Not as far in front of it.
Matt Harrison: Um, but you're right. It's easy to get yourself in a bind. No doubt. No doubt. And this is a great spot for us to be able to take a short intermission and we will be back to you in just one moment. All right, we are now back from our break. We're about to share some more hunting stories here with Mr. Jim Ronquest We've heard the dog story, heard the hat story, and one thing that most duck hunters have in their life is a boat. Most duck hunters have either ridden in one, owned one, have borrowed one, but they've been in some type of boat. And you have a story about a time that you were pretty sketched out. I was. While in a boat. So tell us that.
Jim Ronquest: So to preface that a little bit, I spend a lot of time, used to, maybe not so much this year, but over time, I've spent a good bit of time in a boat in the wintertime. And for the most part, I can't swim a lick. You swim like a rock. I swim just like a rock. I did not know that. Yeah, I swim just like a rock. And you used to be bad about not wearing a life jacket.
Matt Harrison: Those two don't go good together, Mr. Jim.
Jim Ronquest: No, I'm trying to change my ways. But I grew up riding boats, running boats, and I never, if I get scared of boats because it's a boat really small or we're in a bad situation. This was one of those bad situations. So this was back in the commercial hunting days, when we could commercial hunt on state and federal ground also. And there was a place we were going to that you had to run a really narrow slough. It was a man-made slough, to be truthful. It was a narrow slough come off of a bend in White River, and it had a pile of current in it. Matter of fact, when you were coming out of it, you could tell you're going uphill. And when you're going down it in the morning, For those of y'all who may or may not been around a lot of boats, you have to be going faster than the current to have any control if you're downstream. So you can't run on step in this particular spot, but you had to be running pretty good with the currents pushing you.
Matt Harrison: You had to be on plane.
Jim Ronquest: You had to kind of be rolling. In the boat I run, it's time. Didn't have a breakaway plate. It's a power trim. And I happen to knew there's logs in there, but typically, bounce right over. Well, I had kind of slowed down his spot there and I couldn't see the log really. And we had, you know, had five people in the boat. We was at maximum capacity. We run up on there when the motor didn't kick up, the motor stuck. Now the back of the boat It's facing upstream, and there's all this water pushing on it, and a little bit of water started to break over the back. And, you know, I had my boat balanced, and I kept my cool. Luckily, I had a really dear friend with me that's pretty agile, a guy named Jake Latondras running the camera with me. Anyway, so I guess everybody stepped forward, and water was just starting to break the back of that transom. And it's one of them deals, you might've just stayed hung on the log, But she was been bad hung up and then I was thinking, okay, if the sucker kicks off here, we're going down. So we was able to get everybody in the front, get the motor raised up and get off there with no issues. But that could have turned into a way worse situation if you If you wouldn't have been that far up, or you let all that water come across the transom, then you're done. And you don't realize how fast that can happen, too.
Matt Harrison: It's literally, and then you find yourself in that situation, the worst thing you can do is panic. Because you don't have much time. Once that water breaks that transom, Oh, it's, it's now. It's, buddy, it don't take.
Jim Ronquest: It's, it's, it's, it's now. Uh, I drove one of the bottom one time, jumping a beaver dam. Of course it wasn't real deep, but still had a load in it, the front end come up, wham. And you know how deep driving, deep diving crankbait works.
Matt Harrison: Oh yeah. Once that lip gets in the way.
Jim Ronquest: Drove it right to the bottom, man. We just stood there. Then we finally got it back up out there and went hunting, but there's all kinds of things can happen. Cung up between two trees is a bad deal. You think, I can fit through there, and you're trying to line up, and then you see the gouge on it, and then you see the size go in and stop. Never a good sign. That's never a good deal. That, that's a good reason to always run in pairs. Have somebody else with another boat.
Matt Harrison: Even if you don't need two boats, if it's four guys, two and two, always have another boat to help get you out. No doubt. I can't tell you how many times we have been thankful another boat has been there. Whether you get stuck, run out of gas, fuel line break, anything. Yeah, when that happened to us two years ago, literally spun a prop, and you're out four or five miles from the boat ramp. Oh. But thank the Lord we had another boat to pull us back, because we would have been- Been in a bind.
Jim Ronquest: A bind. Worst come worse, at least get you to the truck so you could go get some more help or some more tools.
Matt Harrison: Yeah, exactly, exactly. We have another boat story, too. This is probably one of my all-time favorite stories, just funny-wise. The wreck? Had several wrecks. And before, don't hear that wrong. Nobody was injured, so it could be funny. But tell us about the time you were not feeling good and you went hunting anyway. Yes.
Jim Ronquest: So, another one, back in the commercial guiding days, and Mama Rosie wanted me to… That changes things about going hunting. When you're a… paycheck or your available income to buy groceries depends on that. Mom and Rosie had whole different opinions. No, you need to get up and go hunting. These guys want to go. So we went that morning. Buddy of mine was hunting with us and they were great customers. And I, man, I had the flu. I mean, I just, was sick, wasn't feeling it, you know, and he said, I looked, Jimbo, he said, look here, man, we stopped at the store, he said, and I've been drinking a cup of coffee, he said, here's a 20 ounce Diet Mountain Dew, and he had, I don't know what, how many different kinds of cold medicines he had, he said, well, take some of this, take some of this, take some of that, and drink that, man, you'll be fine. And there was two of us running up that morning, My old buddy, Trey Crawford, was running one boat and driving one of my trucks. And I was driving my old Suburban, pulling the other boat. And I took all this stuff he tells me to take, and we're on our way to the boat landing. And I remember Treybo passing me. And we get up to the boat landing. He said, dang, Jimbo. He said, you was going 25 miles an hour. I thought I was doing 70. I said, OK. And I was thinking all while. I said, well, when I get out, get the boat in, get the cold wind in my face, I'll feel better. I'll wake up. I'll feel better. So we get the boats in the water, we get everybody situated, we're heading down the river. This is before we had lights mounted on the front of the boat, so you know, you hold one spotlight way up in the air, you get your trim adjusted, you know. Wow, we're going down the river, we're going, everything's good. We make this turn, make that turn. I got kind of discombobulated. I always would turn my light, and I would make, I would follow my light, right? You know? So I knew the river made a hard left right there. And I kept trying to turn and just things weren't right. Your brain and body were doing two different things. Brain and body was not meshing at all. And I was running, had her codded back pretty good. And when I realized I couldn't turn, I said, all right, boys, hang on. We fixing to crash. I just cut the throttle, dropped the light, and covered my head. And we went wham, bam, wham. People were down in the boat, and we bounced off through the woods. I don't know how far. Finally, we got stopped, and that woke me up. Nobody was hurt. Everything was OK. Dog was still in the boat, and everybody was fine. The only thing that was hurt was my pride. And we got turned around and back out of there and caught up with everybody. And they said, hey, Jimbo, how was that ride out through the woods? I said, well, I appreciate your help. You know? But that was a fun one. Luckily, nobody was hurt. Thankfully, I had always clued everybody in. So, all right, guys, we get in the boat. If we start through the woods, keep your hands inside the boat and do not grab a limb. And they did, because some of the worst things could happen. It's kind of like when you're walking through the woods, if I'm right behind you, you're holding a limb, letting me go through, being a nice guy. You do that in the woods, and you're going to break somebody's nose real quick. Nothing worse than about a finger size oak, green oak limb. Get that. Catch you right under the nose on about a 20 degree morning. Will guarantee to cause you to tear up.
Matt Harrison: That's like a scooter to the ankle type deal. Oh yeah, absolutely. I have a boat story too. Again, it was me and my brother and we were hunting a place down in Arkansas, some public ground. And going in, you know, everything was great. Well, While we hunted, from the time that we had came in to the time that we left, the water had rose a substantial amount, okay? Like, it had come up a good amount. Anyway, we were not really at a point in our careers, waterfowl-wise, that we paid attention to that kind of stuff, you know? Like, we may have noticed, man, the water came up, but what you don't realize, now, a lot of the things that you could see coming in, you won't be able to see coming out, even though it's daylight, you know? Well, anyway, we were coming out, and there was some cypress. We knew that, you know, there's some cypress knees in this area, whatever. Well, they were hidden now, you know, because that water had then rose a good bit. Well, anyway, we're coming out. Thank the Lord we didn't have our pen back. But we were still going probably 20 miles an hour, which, you know, that ain't just scalding it, but that also, that didn't just slow, you know. We got to a point where we let off of it a little bit. Well, anyway, we come around a corner. And it was about like one of those scenarios where we knew that we could make these two trees, you know, plenty of space, but it was two, I'm talking about, mammo jammo cypress trees. One of those that, buddy, she's been around a long time. Uh, and anyway, sure enough, we, we had the boat going and Michael, my brother was driving and we hit one of those Cypress knees and it kicked that, you know, mud motor out of the water. And you know, once that propeller's out of the water, you can't, until it gets back down. You have no control. Zero. And you know, sometimes it takes a little bit to get it back down. We were going 20 miles an hour. And once we hit that cypress and they boom, that motor kicked out and there was no control. And buddy, there wasn't nothing between us and that cypress tree, but air and opportunity. And that opportunity was to square that bad girl up. And she didn't move. She didn't budge a leg. But let me tell you what did. the boat, was that compartment at the front that my legs went slam through. I'm talking about, and we had an old F&F, you know, flat bottom boat. And I'll never forget, thank the Lord, I had already told myself, because I was riding in a kind of a weird spot of the boat, and I was like, you know, if we hit something, I need to kind of be prepared. But buddy, when I hit, my legs literally went through the deck of the boat. Kid you not, punched it out. And I can never, I will never forget this. It's almost like you said once that guy shot over your head you were just you sat there for a minute like am I okay? Because your adrenaline is so high that you don't know if you're hurt and you don't know if you're fine And I can just remember thinking I looked down and about from my middle of thigh down I couldn't see my legs. They're just in the front of the boat. And I said, I literally said, I'm like, am I, am I paralyzed? Am my legs broke? Cause I mean, you know. You can't see them. You can't. And I was just like, they're up in there somewhere. So literally my brother's outside of the boat, swimming back, our cameras floating off. Michael finally gets back in the boat and he literally has to grab me by my wader straps, pull me out. And I kid you not, it may have been me overthinking it, but I, For the first couple minutes, I could not move my legs. I don't know if I was so stunned. I don't know if I had already psyched myself out enough where I thought my legs were broke. But I can remember being like, Michael was like, he was literally sitting over me. He was like, just move your feet. Just move your feet. And I was like, I'm trying. I'm trying. He's like, move them. And finally, you know, I could wiggle my feet. And he's like, we're good. And he said, man, all I could think about is I've done ruined Matt's baseball career. Here my brother is, you know. Dang. But that goes back to us saying, you know, you got to be careful driving boats. And we were being careful, but it's just like people tell you, it don't matter how careful you are, if you're not aware of what's going on and you're not making an effort to like, you know, water, water level stumps, logs, knowing where you're running. That's so key. Cause you got a lot of people now. Man, they'll run a river. They don't know the current. They don't know where that log shows or don't show at water levels. So it's so important to be careful, you know, be so careful driving a boat because in an instant, you know, it can change in an instant.
Jim Ronquest: And just pay attention to that water too. You know, I can talk about other boat wrecks, but we, uh, I was running a cache a couple of times this year. Water was on the fall. And you just, if you just learn to watch how that current moves, It'll tell you what's under there, tell you where to be careful. I always try to, until I really know the run I'm making, I try to take it pretty easy until I know what's there. And it can change every day. You never know when something's going to float in. Had an instance several years ago, I think it was on New Year's Day, I forget what year, because we made a note of it and I got a picture of it. I hairlifted my 1754 pretty good and run up this old logging road and looking for a spot to hunt. I said, gosh dang it, there's somebody there. And I just run in there on step. I said, oh crap. So I spun around, going to leave, probably a little frustrated. I hit the gas. About the time the bow laid down on step, I was hitting the trim button. Wham! Motor kicked up. My nephew and I was in the boat. No control. Boat took a hard left. Center punched a tree. The only thing kept him from getting thrown out was his head. He hit his head on the tree. That's kind of funny. I got the motor pushed back into the water. The fuel tank broke the fuel line off. God dang, man, we was about in a bad spot there. People come up, you all right? Yeah, I'm fine. Leave me alone. I get the boat pumped out and I take the fuel line, I just stick it down in the gas tank and pump it up, you know. By God, she run, you know, so okay, we're gonna go. We went and killed some ducks that morning, but that year, I think when was that, 2016, 17, I don't, anyway. It was a bad start to the year anyway.
Matt Harrison: No doubt. But it happens. It does. And it's just, again, being careful. And our listeners out there, you know, I know it almost sounds like a dad telling kids, but like, it's so important. Boats are so dangerous, like so dangerous. Just be aware.
Jim Ronquest: Y'all heard there was a really bad wreck on Cache River this year. And that's just being careful, you know. I don't know all the circumstances of what went on or what happened. Prayers to the families, the injured folks there. Just, man, be careful.
Matt Harrison: No doubt. No doubt. Well, shifting gears a little bit, uh, if you've ever spent some time in the woods, there's probably been a time you've got turned around a little bit. And you know, as well as I do, you can get turned around faster than a bottle cap spinning on a plastic floor. Yeah. Especially if it's foggy.
Jim Ronquest: Um. But it doesn't have to be foggy. I kind of used to always pride myself on knowing where I was at. Sometimes yes, sometimes no, but here's a good one for you. So this is going way back. The early days of GPSs. So Rosie had got me a GPS for Christmas. Alls I can tell you, I remember it was a Garmin. It was a big, long, black device. And this was after duck season, looking for something to do. Water was up. And I wanted to go look around places I'd been hunting, maybe do a little scouting around. You know, I always thought best time to scout for places to hunt is when nobody's around.
Matt Harrison: It's after season.
Jim Ronquest: Good time to go look. Anyway, she said, well, I'll go. It's a pretty late winter. Weather kind of like we're having now. Beautiful day, sunshine, water's up. Perfect day to get out. Perfect day to get out and mess around. She said, well, I'll go with you. I said, well, cool. So we get up in the woods, nice river ride, you know, a few ducks around. We're easing through the woods. I'm pointing this hole, that hole, places we hunt. And I said, well, I'm going to take off. I want to walk out this ridge, and I want to go check some stuff. And I want to play with this thing. She said, well, I'm just going to stay in the boat and read a book. Cool. So I get out, and I get my device turned on. And normally, I'd have took a compass bearing on the way I was going. Been no big deal. But I said, no, this thing's going to tell me where I'm going, what I'm doing, everything. I did not know at the time that it would not. So I take off walking, and I'm walking, and I'm watching. It's drawing me this line where I'm going. But this is before there was a map in the background, right?
Matt Harrison: Yeah.
Jim Ronquest: It's just a line. It's just a line on the screen between you make your own points. So I get up there and I find one, so I know this spot and I go over here. So this is, that's cool. So I'm walking and going and I'm here and there and I'm watching this thing and I'm looking down most all the time. I'm not looking up and not looking behind me. And I finally make my loop, and I thought, well, I better start working my way back towards the boat. I've been up here for a while. So I turn around as I start back where I think was the boat, and I look up and look around. I'm like, this don't look right. So I said, I didn't go that way. So I'm walking and walking. I start running out of water. I'm like, I know this ain't right. So it's, well, let's walk this way, and I keep walking and walking and walking, and now, now it's too deep.
Matt Harrison: This ain't right.
Jim Ronquest: This ain't right either. And there's supposed to be a big cypress tree that you can just always see. It's taller than everything else, and it's your landmark. Yeah. And I'm not finding my landmark. This ain't good. This ain't, this ain't a bit good. This ain't a bit good. And I kind of know, roughly direction-wise, the general compass direction of where the boat should be to where I'm at, but not 100% which end of it is, because I know if I get, there's, there's a place you could cross a ridge and be on the wrong ridge, and now you're really screwed, right? Oh boy. Um, I'm working my way back and forth and nothing looks right. And finally, finally, like two hours later, that kind of looks familiar. I know that tree. I know. So Rosie ain't heard a word from her. She's been in her book, right? So I finally hollered, Rosie! I yelled a little longer and I heard, what? Finally got her to yell again, so I got a line. So then I start trying to make my way on that line, and I hit another deep spot. I said, how in the world did I make it there? Anyway, I backtracked around, found the ridge, got back to the boat. But I think it was about near dark time we got out of there. I was severely, I wasn't lost, but I was severely turned around.
Matt Harrison: And it is so easy, especially when you get like the White River Bottom and those big hardwoods or any type of really, really anywhere with a lot of a hardwood bottom or something like that. If you just get turned around for half a second, you ain't really paying attention or you don't have a device that you can really follow. And nowadays, a lot of the things make it so easy, but man, everything looks the same.
Jim Ronquest: Everything. Same. And had I studied that GPS a little bit, I would have known that I could have made a point at the boat. Ah, I see. No, I wasn't that smart. You know, I thought, I didn't think I'd do it.
Matt Harrison: Well, they say, you live and you learn. I did that today. You live and you learn. Big lesson. Them are the best ones learned right there. No doubt. No doubt. Well, Mr. Jim, I can't thank you enough for just taking time to hop on. Amen. and tell some stories with myself and also for our listeners to hear. I can't thank y'all all so much. We also want to thank Mr. Chris Isaac, our podcast producer, and also Rachel over here that is also helping us with the podcast. Mr. Jim, thank you so much. And thank you also so much to our Ducks Unlimited podcast listeners for tuning in.