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Ducks Unlimited Podcast is a constant discussion of all things waterfowl; from in-depth hunting tips and tactics, to waterfowl biology, research, science, and habitat updates. The DU Podcast is the go-to resource for waterfowl hunters and conservationists. Ducks Unlimited is the world's leader in wetlands conservation.
Chris Jennings: Hey everybody, welcome back to the Ducks Limit Podcast. I'm your host, Chris Jennings. Joining me in studio today is Jimbo Ronquist, the Vice President of Development for Drake Waterfowl. Jimbo, how are you, man?
Jimbo Ronquest: Welcome back. Man, I'm good, buddy. Thanks for having me, as usual.
Chris Jennings: Man, we're excited about this. We've done several, actually we've done three different kind of introduction to duck calling and goose calling we did with Brooke Rashard and Kelly Powers, and we really kind of got into even team calling, some different aspects of it. What I wanted to bring you in for is something we're really gonna break down, and even they discussed it, the feeding chuckle, and how important it is, how you use it. I've hunted with you several times, I've heard your feeding chuckle, as I'm sure most of our audience has from everything from RNTV to DUTV and all across the board. It's impressive for people who have not ever seen that or heard that in person. And that's what I wanted to have you in here to discuss, just kind of talk about your feeding call, how it kind of… how it transitioned over the years from even competition calling back in the day. And give our audience an idea of maybe how they can improve their feeding chuckle. But before we do that, you know, as we should, no matter what, with Drake Waterfowl in here, we just wrapped up the July-August issue. It should be going to press here shortly, and I'm sure our audience will probably hear this before they get their copy of the magazine. But that is the new guns and gear issue. It's a big issue for me. banded on the new guns and gear this year. It's even bigger than it ever has been before, but it was a great opportunity to showcase some of Drake's new and exciting products that are coming out for 2024. Magazine readers will be able to see that and then also go online and see that stuff on drakewaterfowl.com. But I wanted you to go ahead and take this opportunity to discuss some of the cool products that you guys have coming out this year.
Jimbo Ronquest: Yeah, buddy, man. Chris, thanks for the opportunity. Got several new things coming for fall 24. I'm going to re-up on the waiters, the improvement on the waiters from last year. Really turned out good. Everybody's spending duck season in them. I've heard nothing but great things about the new HND waiters. They're coming back this year. Boots are great, zippers great. The other thing we're trying with them on a limited availability, we're calling them a hybrid. So there's going to be insulation from the legs down and no insulation up top. We're curious about how that's going to go. That's going to be fun. A lot of conversations about it. Um, it's really handy sometimes if you're hunting cold water and cold weather not to have to put a bunch of stuff on underneath them. Yet at the same time, if it's warm, then you're burning up. So instead of coming all the way up with the insulation, we want to see what people think about going halfway.
Chris Jennings: So. Yeah, I think that'll be, I mean, from a timber hunting perspective, or even people hunting like small little slews and things like that. I mean, if you're only in knee-deep to, you know, thigh-deep water, it's going to be great.
Jimbo Ronquest: And you're not going to be, you know, dressing under it. Personally, I like the opportunity to be able to dress as needed underneath my waders, but we're going to give folks that opportunity to try it either way. So that'll be, that'll be good. Some other cool stuff that I think's coming, one of my favorite new pieces is the double down stuff and the double down Jack shirt. It's synthetic down, it's super warm, yet it's light. You can move well in it. It layers good underneath a heavier jacket. It's just going to be something I think folks are really going to enjoy to use if you like wearing that kind of stuff. Another one that's gonna be super cool, you could use this in conjunction with your jack shirt, is the Ultimate Waiter Hoodie. I mean, it's real heavy fleece, super warm, cool pocket structure on it. It's a nice piece. It's not just a regular old hoodie, it's a piece of gear.
Chris Jennings: Yeah, and you can tell it's really, well, I've got one in my office and you can tell that thing's heavy. Yeah. You know, it's gonna be warm. The pockets are cool. That's the first thing that jumps out to me. You know, you got the front zip pockets and, you know, it's fantastic.
Jimbo Ronquest: More room to put stuff, just, you know, what, just what we need is duck hunters, more pocket to put stuff in, right? One of the others that I'll hit on is the hole shot jacket. That's a, that's a really heavy fleece, kind of on the same thing as, as that ultimate wader hoodie, either full zip or half zip. I think folks are really going to like it. It's got a hood, it's windproof. It's, it's another solid piece of gear. Yeah. But a lot of other new stuff, won't wear you out. Get a chance, check out the new DU magazine, check out drakewaterfowl.com. See what's coming.
Chris Jennings: Yep. All kinds of exciting new stuff. And you know, Duck and Goose Hunters, we are what we are. We're all gearheads. So, uh, we like seeing the new products, like testing out some of this new stuff. And you guys definitely have some, some great stuff coming out for 2024.
Jimbo Ronquest: Yes, I'm really excited about the Double Down series of stuff. Uh, Double Down layering full zip jacket and vest. That's, that's one of my staples. That's my everyday combined with the G3 flex jacket. If you, waterproof, windproof, light, it's the, even if it's not raining, I wear it. It keeps the dog water off of me, dog shaking off. If it's raining and it's rough, put that over your Double Down jacket, man, you're, you're warm, dry, and toasty.
Chris Jennings: I, you know, one, one of the pieces that I have in my office still, Is that MST the packable one? Man, that's a cool little jacket too. I mean, it's, it's super lightweight, but you can tell that it's going to be warm.
Jimbo Ronquest: You know? That's what I really like about the double down stuff and the synthetic down stuff. It's very packable, very light, very flexible, but it's so warm. It's warmth to weight ratio is really, really good.
Chris Jennings: Yeah, man. I mean, I think it's, I think it's fantastic. I'm always excited about seeing all this cool stuff, so.
Jimbo Ronquest: Man, that's kind of, you know, again, duck hunters, we've got a gear chunk. Oh man, that's cool. I got a closet full of stuff. Yeah, that's right. Need to have a yard sale every couple of years. We can refresh.
Chris Jennings: Yeah. Well, I'm sure you could do that. Yeah. That's awesome. Well, cool. You got anything else or we want to go ahead and get right into the calling aspect of it?
Jimbo Ronquest: I could go on and on, but just to, like I said, go to drakewaterfowl.com, look at the new stuff for fall 24. Um, go to a retailer near you, see what they have, try it on, check it out.
Chris Jennings: Cool. And in the process of buying that Drake Waterfowl, you're also supporting Ducks Unlimited as our proud partner. Absolutely, buddy. Awesome. Well, cool. Let's get into this, you know, the whole aspect of duck calling is something that we kind of went through. You know, everything from holding the call to making the sounds, things like that. But we really didn't kind of dial in the focus on any of those. And that's what I wanted to do with this podcast and for this for a future article for the magazine as well. But, you know, really diving into the feeding call and just from a, you know, 50,000 foot level for you, you know, how important is that feeding chuckle?
Jimbo Ronquest: From my perspective, it's very important. That's kind of one of my mainstays when I'm calling ducks, whether I'm in a rice field, flooded river bottoms, hardwoods, green tree reservoir, whatever I'm in, Oxbow Lake, I use a feed call a lot. Now, there's other people that are excellent duck hunters and duck callers, and I'll tell blowing a feed call doesn't matter. And they very well may be right, and it works for them. I get that. For me, feed call has been very important. Over time, I have learned that a lot of times you'll use a feed call breaking high ducks. You'll use a feed call turning ducks. If you talk about calling on the corners, sometimes a feed works maybe, I'm not going to say better, but it's different. You're trying to turn ducks back into the wind instead of hitting them with it. You know, hit them with a hard feed, you know, just pull them back around. And really, I don't know how ducks hear it. We call it feed call, but it's all part of feed and contentment and spacing calls. It's kind of put together into one, but it's fun when you see response to something, you tend to do it again. So, I've had good response using the feed call a lot of different ways, you know, from being really quiet to being really loud. And a buddy of mine, the 2009 world champion Mike Anderson, said this, him and I like to talk and, you know, compare notes. And he made this comment that made it make sense to me. A lot of times, what calls ducks or geese doesn't necessarily sound exactly like one. It may be a caricature. of what a duck or a goose sounds like or what they hear or see. Think of why those great big huge decoys work. You know, the super steaminess of those, if we just looked at those, John's office that a modern decoy that was three foot long, you know, that doesn't look like a duck, but yet it's painted to look like a duck. And it works. And it works. So calling, I think, is a lot the same way. So back to the feed call. You know, there's a lot of people think of it just a basic little rolling feed call, um, you know, dug it, dug it, dug it. And that's, you'll hear ducks do that a lot when they're flying. You know, you'll hear, you'll hear, uh, just really short. You know, and that's a true feed call. You hear that sound on the water. You hear some people say, oh, they don't make that sound on the water. Well, they will. I've watched them do it. Versus a chatter, which is more a true feed call. You'll see ducks in, say, a flooded rice field or corn field, and they'll be And it's kinda, I don't know if it's, I really don't know if it's a spacing call, or if it's, man, the food's really good, y'all come try some. But ducks really do respond to that pretty well. You know, when you hit them with that and you see them feet drop, you tuck in wings a little bit, hmm, they like that. So I don't know what they interpreted it as, but they liked it. So I did it again. Anyway, as you think about the feed call, Think about not only feed, but also contentment. Um, and you know, spacing, you, you hear ducks in there a lot of times they'll hit that feed call a little faster. You'll hear them. And I think that's a spacing call or it's a, I don't know if it's some sort of an assembly call. You hear a lot when they fly over decoys or fly over other ducks, you hear that again. And I don't know if that's a assembly, hey, y'all come go with us, we're going to look, or if it's an in-the-air spacing call of some sort.
Chris Jennings: Yeah, now one thing that, you know, kind of jumps out to me, and you've probably seen as much of this as just about anyone just because of where you live and where you grew up and what you did, but, you know, large numbers of ducks, whether it's in timber or in a field or whatever, If you pull up on the side of the road and you listen to these ducks, I mean, you hear a lot of quacks, you hear that, but you hear a lot more of that feeding call, you know, that, and that's kind of where I think you're leading to, the contentment.
Jimbo Ronquest: You hear a lot of k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k- But underneath all that, you got… The hole in it never stops. It never stops. It's a wall of sound. So, I give away one of my trade secrets, hunting with buddies that are all used to hunting with each other and confident callers. That'll be kind of a thing, breaking high ducks in public woods, is you'll get a couple guys getting started and then just lay into that feed. Yeah. Or somebody laying in that feed and just keep it rolling. And that's a big part of it now. You could also say, man, you're blowing every duck out of the trees. But when you just pay attention and you watch how they react, then you'll kind of build on that. You'll know when to kind of add to it and when to let up. For me, whether I'm in a rice field, Oxbow Lake, or the woods, I pretty much blow the same feed, but I may inflect it a little differently depending on where the ducks are in relation to where I'm sitting at or where my decoys are.
Chris Jennings: So how did your feed call kind of transition over the years from as you were younger to then you started getting into competition calling, which is a totally different type of thing, and then just everyday hunting?
Jimbo Ronquest: And I wish I'd brought more of a contest call with me, but I can get close before I… do it, I'll talk about it. So like everybody else in the world, you learn growing up to blow a feed call, say ticka, ticka, ticka as fast as you can. And that's all pretty good. And that's kind of similar to that slow rolling dugga, dugga, dugga feed call we did a minute ago. And that's kind of how it started. And then, you know, I got to listening to ducks and said, man, ducks don't sound like that all the time. So I tried to, I tried to apply myself to that, listening to them. I remember as I got older, I had a, who was it that made all the cassette tapes for the electronic callers? Johnny Stewart?
Chris Jennings: There's, I think we have some in the studio right here. The Chick Majors, that one was on a record, I believe. Right. Johnny Stewart did make the cassette tapes. I do remember some of them.
Jimbo Ronquest: And I, as I got older, I'd play one in my truck and they had some really cool recordings of Mallard's feeding and whatnot. So I tried to listen to that compared to listening to Wild Ducks and kind of, man, that's, I started kind of, Evolutionizing that and kind of mixing some of that in the contest routine. And then as I got more and more into contest calling, competitive contest stuff, got to be friends with a gentleman who's no longer with us, was a great, turned into a great friend, a guy by the name of Trey Crawford. And Trey Bowe's feed call was excellent. He and I got to be big buddies hunting together and I kind of probably followed him a little bit. And then he followed one of the other greats, Ronnie Wright, probably one of the best callers there was to have never won the world. So I can remember way back in the day before YouTube and Instagram and all that, people would practice on the cassette tapes. They'd go back and listen to themselves. You know, that's how a lot of guys got better. And Ronnie Wright had some practice tapes in Butch Richenbach's, in the original Rich and Tone Duck Call Shop. And we'd all sit around having old, you know, the most cool black tape recorders. You know, you stick it in there and hit the play button and listen to Ronnie Wright practice tape. And his feed call was very aggressive, but yet duck-like, you know. And he mixed between like a hard chatter and a rolling feed very, very quickly.
Chris Jennings: Now, how do you distinguish the difference between your hard chatter and your rolling feed? Like, just kind of explain that to our listeners.
Jimbo Ronquest: Yeah, so in content calling lingo, if you talk about a rolling feed, would be more versus chatter would be… That would be the difference. So if you think, if you back it down to a duck, this little slow roll you hear old duck flying… Or a chatter… And you can mix that all up to sound like other ducks. So there's kind of some of the basic differences. So if you take it from a cluck… which this is a great contentment call. I think a lot of it's old mama hen assembly call. A lot of times early in the season you get birds, in fact, coming across the hole a little bit and you You'll see them feet start to drop and then wings cut. And that's not necessarily a feeding sound. That's a, that's more of a sure enough assembly call. I think it's, I think something with mama hen to ducklings kind of thing. Cause as a year plays out, you get later in the year, it doesn't get as effective in January as it does in November. Anyway, those are kind of the main differences. So if you think about a sure enough contest feed, fast rolling feed, mixed up, um, would be not necessarily like a duck, but think a lot of ducks, all right? Think a pile of ducks. You know, that's like versus, then you do that in an aggressive chatter. You know, and you start getting, start adding all that. Now that's calling at ducks, not calling to ducks. And that's a whole nother discussion right there. Um, but there's some of the basic differences as just a duck hunter. If you can just learn that slow roll with a little bit of throw it into it, you'll shoot ducks or just take that single cluck and then put it in rhythm. And you can, you can build, build, build right off of that, you know, and you can get good little riffs. You know, and you'll see, if you'll use that not constantly, again, think blowing at tail feathers and wingtips, or if you're trying to incite a reaction, do that and then stop and see how the birds react. You'll decide how you want to apply that. For me, like breaking ducks, there's a breaking feed. So a lot of times on high ducks, you'll hit them several hard licks, hard licks, and you see them start to kind of give it up a little bit. I'll blow feed cause a hard, aggressive chatter and start throwing all them quacks into it as hard as I can. And a lot of times you'll just see him keep pulling and pulling and pulling into it. And you're like, I got to quit. And if you, when you let up, you'll see a lot of times they'll let up. But then other times. You gotta be quiet, so you gotta read the birds. You can sure blow them out, and people look at you like you got three eyeballs, and then when it works, everybody's zero. But a lot of it is you got to, one, think about your inflection, and your timing. and how the birds are acting, where were they when you started them? You know, there's so many small intricacies to calling ducks. It's more than just picking a duck call up and blowing it. You know, as you well know, you know, are they, are they high ducks? You think they're, you think they're flight ducks? Are they going from rest area to a feeding spot? You know, how you start them, when you start them, where they're at, the kind of weather is going to dictate to me how I'm going to call to them.
Chris Jennings: Oh yeah, and then you always have those one-off days where, and I know that's one of my favorite things, when everyone, again, like you mentioned, people think you're the hero, and you're staying on that feed going, as soon as you let off, the ducks will drift. Oh yeah. And then you stay on it, and all of a sudden they get a little closer, and you let up, because you're worried about blowing them out, and they drift off, and then all of a sudden you're like, I'm going to stay on this feed call until those things are on the water. Absolutely. And just stay on it. And people are like, I can't believe you just did that.
Jimbo Ronquest: Are you crazy? Yeah. I've even done it to the point where I was like, oh, good Lord, you're going to blow them out of here. You got to quit. Yeah. And you don't. Yeah. I was hunting with a gentleman a couple years ago. I was guiding, and I was blowing at some ducks over here. Man, I was trying to get him turned. I was pouring it to him, and all of a sudden, pow, pow, pow. Like, it scared me to death. I said, what did you do? He said, man, them five matters, they did not let up. As long as you called, they kept coming. I said, if I'd have saw them, I'd have quit, you know? So that's just part of it. And that's the fun part. And again, you can use the feed in so many different ways to be different than everybody else. That's what makes it fun. You don't always have to just be hitting a lick at them. You can use that feed call and change it up to make it have different meanings and just see how they react to it.
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Chris Jennings: And here in a few minutes, we'll do this where we'll just break down where you can go through your, you know, rolling feed, you know, your soft or, you know, we'll do the different variations. But before we get to that, you know, let's say somebody comes up to you, walks up to you and just like, Hey, I need to improve my feed call. What are the first few steps that you tell them?
Jimbo Ronquest: Well, firstly, I want to hear what they're doing. And most people try to go too fast. It's not a race. Speed will come once you get your mechanics right. So once you hear them say, look, enunciate, make sure you make the right enunciations and get that through the call. And a lot of folks learn how to add a little bit of larynx to it. You'll hear duck callers talk about, put a little more throat in it, and that'll kind of change the sound, and that's not, a lot of guys think that's voice, and that's not voice, so, versus hitting it like, and it's gonna come out, you know, kind of tinny, so if I add a little larynx in there, Here I changed it a little deeper. So that's the difference between saying, ticka, ticka, ticka, and ticka, ticka, ticka, ticka. Just add a little bit of voice into it. So as you learn cluck in the chatter, You know, you kind of got to grind your throat a little bit. Day-in-day-hunt, you kind of, during duck season, man, Jimbo, you sick? No, just blown duck calls. But you got to get back in your throat right there. That's where that comes from. And then once you think about, again, enunciation, so a slow rolling feed, you think like ticka-ticka, dugga-dugga, digga-digga, and you can mix that up too. A lot of times in the contest world, you mix it up. You start with one and you go back and forth and it kind of gives it a little inflection. So, you think digga digga. Then start in kids, in the kids clinic, we tell them to go tooka, tooka, and that's hard to do. Take a guy that's used to blowing a duck call and make him slow down and go. And then start adding a little throat. Then you kind of just let the rhythm take over. And you can just roll on with it. Those little things there, once you get people enunciating right and moving in the right direction, then it's a piece of cake. They get it. Once it clicks, it clicks. And then you can mix up back and forth again, as we was talking about those different sounds. So think digga digga, then dugga dugga. You can start going back and forth with different syllables and get a little different sound.
Chris Jennings: Yeah. And then going for that different inflection, is that, are you adding, you know, when you're adding something to your feed call in the process of a hunt, is that you're trying to see reaction? You know, you know what I mean? Like kind of just explain that to people, like you're not just doing one all the time.
Jimbo Ronquest: No, no, you're going to do different things at different times for sure. So if inflection more, let me back up and do my inflection story here. This will help put some perspective on it. So I'm going to use you as an example. Two words. Hey, Chris. So say I hadn't seen you in four or five years. We used to run around, hunt, drink beer together. Hey, Chris. I'm excited. Happy to see you. Say you're about to step on about a four foot long water box and it's as big around as a beer can. Hey Chris, you owe me a hundred dollars. Hey Chris. You was late for supper one night, he's out on your bicycle, your mama told you to be home at 6.30 to supper, you rolled in at 7.30. Hey, Chris, same two words each time, but the inflection gives it different meaning. Correct? Same thing with duck calling. If you apply that to your calling, it's easier to show with a basic quack. So if you just, old hen out here, she's just happy to be there. She's content swimming around. Quack, quack, quack, quack. Just easy and content. That same, same hen, you walk up there and you kick the bush and you say, get out of here. And you hear her, she'll go. As she flies off, one's contented, one's alarmed, but the mechanics are the same. The inflection is different. There's a good example. Same way the fecal. So if you're trying, you got ducks, they're just right there on the trees and you got to tickle them around a little bit. I'm going easy. Yep. Them same ducks, they're right here and I want to turn them back into it. So I stepped it up a little bit, a little more throat, a little more rattle in it, change, change the inflection to turn them back. Yeah. That's kind of a general.
Chris Jennings: Yeah. And you're, and you're, you know, I think the main point of that as well, not just the inflection, which I think is a really good point, but you're watching ducks the whole time. You know, that's what I think, you know, a lot of people, and I'm not pointing the finger at anyone, but you know, you've got a lot of these guys who are sitting in a pit or even in the timber and they're just. You know, it's like, it's like, yeah. And it's like, all right, well, I get it. You can, you can, you can. blow on that duck call. That's awesome. Um, but why? The why is a big part. You know, and like, and I think a lot of people struggle with that and that you're kind of pointing out some very basic, but also very advanced hunter, almost like masterclass calling type. And this is kind of cool because we're focusing it just on the feeding chuckle. And that's what, yeah, that's kind of what I wanted to get across with this podcast was, you know, everybody's feeding calls. different. A little bit different. Yeah. But, you know, learning how to use it and use it correctly has a lot more to do with the ducks than it does maybe even the collar.
Jimbo Ronquest: Oh, for sure. Yeah. For sure. And I think, again, the more you practice it, the With the idea there's a difference between calling at them and calling to them. Yeah. I think that's where a lot of, that's where that guy's out there just, wah, wah, all the time. Or, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta You can't look at them all the time, but you gotta know what they're doing. I can't look straight up at them. So you try to catch them underneath your hat, Bill, right there, okay, and you'll apply whatever you think you need to apply or not apply at that time. Let's, let's think of it like this. So like an airplane, if you see ducks circling in their tails, kind of down their butts, they're, they're listening. When you ever see them make that next pass, I think late season here, or mid season, and you see them make a pass and they level out, what are you thinking then? They get level. They, they may, you may get one more round out of them. Try everything you've got right now. And then after that, they'll start getting higher. So pay attention to how they're reacting to your call, but pay attention to their general mood, if you will. That'll have a lot to do with it. If they look happy and comfortable, don't call any more than you have to. I like to blow duck calls, work in the duck call world forever. Let me raise both hands that I call too much. But I tell myself not to. Self-aware. Self-aware. Less is more. But again, back to using the feed call. Learn to blow a basic feed call quiet, medium, and loud. Learn to add inflection a little bit by making it either less raspy or more raspy. Don't blow it constant until you have to. Watch how ducks react, and you'll call every duck that wants to be called. Every duck. Guaranteed, right? Notice the rest of that sentence, though.
Chris Jennings: Every duck that wants to be called. Oh, I got it. That's awesome. Let's roll through just an example before we wrap this up. Let's roll through an example of each of the various feed calls that you use. You've pretty much done it. Um, but you can just provide, this will just give people a, you know, you were talking about what Ronnie Wright, his, you know, cassette tapes. Well, this is a great opportunity for our audience to be able to use this podcast as their cassette tape for improving their fee call. Um, so if you just want to step through each process or each different variation of the fee call that you use on a regular basis.
Jimbo Ronquest: Okay, let me see. I can see the wheels were turning there. Wheels were turning. Let me see how I want to go about that. So let's start with the basic feed call that everybody growing up tried to learn off all the old tapes. And I want to remind me, I want to get back to that in a minute, but basic, they say ticket, ticket, ticket, whatever I said, or kitty, kitty, kitty, whatever it was. So your basic ticket, ticket, ticket feed call. Pretty simple, you know, just rolling tongue. So now I'm going to do that same thing. That was kind of without adding any larynx. Now I'm going to add a little voice into that. You got the sound change right there. Then you put a little rhythm with it. And that'll kill ducks right there, for sure. So you change that, we'll roll that into kind of like a chatter. So I kind of changed that up. I'll get a little more aggressive and I'm gonna start throwing some quacks in there. I'm really just dropping my tongue, just kind of adding a little bit of the inflection of this is several different ducks. That and a little of it's also, you hear guys do that a lot. You think it's cool. A lot of it's tongue relief because you're trying to go so fast, you need a little break. So. You know, you start sounding like different ducks kind of walking. That's, that's the idea behind that. I don't know if ducks hear it that way, but duck hunters hear it that way. And we think we're doing something cool. That's something like you use hunting. So you'll slow that down a lot of times. And that's, that's getting more duck like, and then just, you know, just be able to have fun within clucks, the clucks, which is kind of where it all starts. And you can kind of see ducks kind of reacting to that. And that's, that's the basics. And then if you want to step it up to the super fast stuff, um. Start adding quacks in. Start adding quacks in and that's just how you want to just go about it. So. Um, and these are, I didn't bring a contest call. These that's, that was a rock and R right there. So not really made for really high speed competition duck calling. Uh, but you get the idea there. Um, and that, that's kind of it. So one of the cooler things that I like about them is again with the feed and I may have said this earlier, but from being a really quiet and easy. It's really easy stuff to be in loud with it. So, you know, I'm really kind of putting a lot on there. So that's kind of the difference you can, and everything in between, you kind of average it out with. Just there's kind of the basics. The variations. Yeah. The different variations of it. And you can build on that lots of different ways. You know, um, I think that's kind of the fun part of it. Again, seeing how ducks react is the big thing. When, when you start hitting the hard feed and you see them bow them wings up, man. Okay. They like that. I'm going to keep pouring it to them. Yeah. Keep on doing it. Or if you see them, they kind of level out. Ooh, I need to back off. You know, need to do something different. So there's a, there, there, there's kind of feed call one-on-one maybe. Yeah.
Chris Jennings: I mean, I think it was a little more than one-on-one, but, um, I mean, I think that's perfect. Now, one thing I do notice, you've got two different lanyards here. I do. And you've got, and every single call on there is a cut down. Yes. And do you think, now I know the variations of cut downs all across the board, but just from even me personally, my feed call is 10 times better and 10 times more vocal with the cut down compared to some other calls. Absolutely. Is that why, you know, you and a lot of other guys, you know, mainly blow these cut downs, especially in the timber?
Jimbo Ronquest: Yes. It just, you hit the nail on the head. You know, to me, it just comes out more natural. Yeah. Got a little hang in it. You know, it's just, it's duck-like, so. You get quiet and you get loud. It's throaty. It's real. Yeah.
Chris Jennings: Okay. Well, I mean, I, I noticed that and then I, I mean, I know a lot of dudes who do blow cut downs and most of them hunt timber primarily, but just seeing how you've got two different lanyards and you've got everything, you know, all cut down.
Jimbo Ronquest: And they're all tuned a little differently. Um, a couple of them I bring cause they're kind of fun. Um, they need corks in them. That's part of the hanging that's been since duck season. Shameless, shameless jab here. So one of these was the prototype that I did to do the RNT Mondo LT off of. And the other one's the prototype I did to do the RNT Rockin' R off of. So, um, that's kind of how they started. And this is the. production version of each one of these. Okay. So there's a little coolness in that. Yeah, that is very cool. And I blow them. These are both my main hunting language, you know? Yeah, I assume that. I don't carry them all at the same time, but I do flip-flop back and forth.
Chris Jennings: And one thing I also noticed, and just to point this out, and this may be something that you're conscious of or not, all of your calls are very dark. in color. You know, you see a lot of different variations in call color and, you know, guys are wearing all, you know, is there a reason why you, everything is almost like a flat natural color or is that just the way?
Jimbo Ronquest: That's kind of the way it worked out, but somewhat by design. Okay. It's, you know, I can remember being working the call counter selling calls and you'd have a bright orange duck call and the guy said, man, duck's neat. If they're looking that close at the duck call, you're not, you're not standing in the right spot. You know, so I'm not that guy, but I do tend to like them a little dark, but I don't think it really, really matters. Again, if a duck's flaring off of seeing your duck call.
Chris Jennings: You should either be shooting or you're standing out in the middle of nowhere.
Jimbo Ronquest: You should either be shooting or you're not head right. I don't know which one.
Chris Jennings: That's perfect. Well, this has been great. Um, you know, I think, like you said, you know, you said feeding call 101. But really, I think we took it a little bit beyond that. Maybe we took it to like 210 or 310.
Jimbo Ronquest: There's probably more we could do, but we could be here forever, you know.
Chris Jennings: That's right. Now, you mentioned, we had mentioned the cassette tapes, and right before you got into doing each different variation of your, you said, well, I want to come back to that.
Jimbo Ronquest: Yeah, so I appreciate you reminding me. Yeah, I didn't want you to miss out on that. Kind of a cool thing. This is more general duck calling, not based on a feed call. But you know, for years, every call maker had their own instructional. Cool. I mean, I got to help make a couple of them. Very cool. But if you listen to the old ones, they'd always talk about, well, you had to have the hail of the greeting call, and you had to have the comeback call, and you had different feed calls. I suggest that they're not that simple. It's no different back to my inflection conversation. If you're way across the room and I got to get your attention, I'm sure, I guess I'm hailing you or whatever, you know, because of the volume. Not because of what I'm saying, it's still, you're still, still, hey, Chris, right? So that's where I go back to, don't necessarily take that all for what it is. You know, the only difference between a comeback call and a greeting call is the timing. Not how it sounds. The mechanics are the same and you'll hear fast hens and slow hens. Yeah, I think hens can be faster. The same hen blows two different licks or hit two different licks, but I think the inflection is more the meaning than the speed of the lick or the timing of when they hit it. How many times if you've been watching ducks, you know, you'll hear ducks, they'll key off at wing beat and you'll see hen cock her head. You know, was that a, was that a comeback or a come here? Yeah. Which was it? So don't get all caught up in what you think it's called. Like in the contest world, we got to do a hail call. We got to do a feed call, come back call, uh, what they call a mating call or single quack. Don't get all worked up into that. Just know that there's feeding contentment calls, basic quacks, and different decacendres or licks that ducks do at different times with different inflections to communicate back and forth. That's why the good Lord give them a voice, right? That's right. So don't get all caught up in You gotta do a hail call, you gotta do a greeting call, you gotta do this. Just learn duck sounds and duck language. Watch ducks, learn to apply it by how they react to your calling.
Chris Jennings: Yeah, and really, I mean, what you would consider a hail call, I guess as per the note itself, but if you, like you mentioned, the inflection in your voice, if you're saying, hey, Chris, from across the room, you could be doing that with a feeding call. Yeah, exactly. Your hail could be a really hard, loud feed call.
Jimbo Ronquest: You call it a break and feed. There you go. The mechanics are the same. You're just being a lot more aggressive with it because you're blowing a feed call at high ducks. No different. You're trying to be finesseful with it, and you're trying to back off, and you're trying to finish ducks. The mechanics of the sound are the same. It's how you imply it and inflect it is what gives it meaning.
Chris Jennings: Yeah, this has been great, man. I mean, completely eye-opening, and I like the fact that we took this one aspect of calling. We've done so many different calling conversations where it kind of, that conversation is massive. Like, we could have 50 people in here doing two hours every day and never touch on all of it.
Jimbo Ronquest: No, and I guarantee you, I can tell you five really good duck callers who I respect that here would have a different take on it than I would. You know, for sure. And that's what makes it work. That's what makes it fun.
Chris Jennings: That's what makes it fun. And you know, one thing that I like about this is I do know guys, I'm honored with guys who don't ever do anything but a feed call, you know, and and it seems to work for them. There you go. You know, so that's, you know, something for, you know, even our listeners to remember going into the season, work on that feed call.
Jimbo Ronquest: Yeah. Yeah. Hey, you won't go wrong practicing it. That's right. The more you learn to use it, the more fun you'll have doing it.
Chris Jennings: Awesome. Well, cool, man. This has been great. Again, we're going to have to have you back in. Anytime. Maybe we'll find another way to break down another just very specific angle of calling. I'm with you. But before I get you out of here, one more thing, though. What are you hearing, you know, as far as, you know, ducks, duck production? And not necessarily about the ducks. We can cover that when the numbers come out. But what are you hearing just from, you know, general duck owners? You know, like, is there some optimism? You know, the Canadian prairies have gotten water. Maybe late, but it got water. They got some anyway. And so what are you hearing on the ground of just, you know, guys out there? I know there was a there was a little while early in the spring where people were pretty looking pretty bleak.
Jimbo Ronquest: Yeah. Looking pretty bleak. I'm I'm kind of in the middle and kind of what I hear, you know, a lot of people asking questions. We did get some water, and as you know, it come a little late, and I'm a little afraid there may have been some ducks missing some of those opportunities. However, where there were ducks that had set up nest on a small wetland that the water was low, way better brooding habitat, maybe will increase the opportunity for second and third nesting attempts. So I'm excited about that. I think there's some optimism out there. There's certainly a lot of negativity, too. Everybody's worried about what's going to happen and whatnot. We know for this year, we're going to see a liberal season pretty much, unless they call an emergency, and I don't think we're going to see that. I think there's room for some optimism, cautious optimism. For sure, you know, they're just kind of finished up the surveys. So hearing a little bit coming back from Matt, I hear a few bright spots, I hear some dark spots too. But we really won't know until I compile all the numbers, you know, but I've heard and seen some anecdotal evidence that either in maybe a small area looked okay.
Chris Jennings: Yeah. No. And I think that, you know, I think that that was really more, you know, we'll have the survey, we'll be going through that. We'll dive into it when it comes out in August. But really, I think what I always tend to look for is just the kind of the perception that's out there from duck hunters around the country. And I'm pretty sure you, you probably have a pretty good, pretty good beat on that for all the different things that you're involved in.
Jimbo Ronquest: And it's all over the board, you know, people talk. I think there's a lot, a lot more people are cautious this year. There's a lot of concern with some folks. There's a lot of concern that, you know, doing too much, but I think overall, we're going to, it's going to be what it's going to be. Yeah. Well, I'm still going. Yeah, me too. I ain't quitting yet. I'm not hanging up my duck calls. Nope. No.
Chris Jennings: It's going to be good. Good. I'm excited. I'm excited to have you back in here. And like I said, appreciate you joining us and we'll definitely get you back in soon. I'm in. I'd like to thank my guest, Jim Ronquist, the Vice President of Development for Drake Waterfowl for coming in and talking about his feed call and how to improve yours. I'd like to thank Chris Isaac, our producer, for putting the show together and getting it out to you. And I'd like to thank you, the listener, for joining us on the DU Podcast and supporting wetlands conservation.