What's going on everybody and welcome to another episode of Loon Ducks, Gundug Chronicles.
Mmm, we've got a great episode.
I really enjoyed this discussion with Callie Parmley.
She is the editor and chief of Gundug Magazine and upcoming About to Launch in April TV show
host of Wild Upland.
She is a Labrador owner and lover.
That's kind of what got her into the game.
And over the last two and a half years, she's been training her own English setter, which
you know Kevin and I have a soft spot for those.
Super fun conversation.
I really enjoyed getting to know her and the adventure she's been on with her dogs.
I hope you enjoy as well.
But first do me a favor.
Check out patreon.com forward slash loon duck outfitters.
The link is in the description.
You heard it in the last episode, but we're doing a Patreon only hunt in Southern Missouri
with Treasure Island Outfitters.
If you're a Patreon member, you can go with us.
It's going to be awesome.
We're going to do a, you know, three day hunt in the afternoons.
We're going to do dog training seminar in the afternoons plus a little beer ski drinking
eating.
All that stuff is included.
It's going to be awesome.
And one lucky patreon member is going to win a chance to come and hunt on this thing.
Right?
So if you join patreon, you're going to be entered to win.
We're going to pick the winner September 1st so that everyone's got time to take time
off will work and for December, it's going to be a blast.
Join patreon.
Join that community.
Plus, there's plenty more reasons to join patreon.
So show support, maybe win a free hunt to Southern Missouri to shoot ducks and do the
dog training seminar.
We're excited to have you on board.
Next up, the YouTube channel.
Guys, do me a solid if you enjoyed this, if you enjoy learning from me, if you enjoy
learning from our guests, hop on YouTube, search loan duck Outfitters and click subscribe
and just binge.
Just binge.
Do it already.
I dare ya.
Next up, our force fetch course.
I put a ton of time and effort to develop a thorough process that the way I do it with
plenty of different breeds, plenty of different personalities to show you how you can do it
yourself with your dog.
The link's going to be in the description below.
If you're thinking of taking the challenge of force fetching your dog, do it the right
way, follow the program and you'll enjoy the process.
Your dog will enjoy the process and you'll be off and running for spring and summer training
and getting ready for hunting season.
Next up, from the duck blind to the holding blind.
It's Purina, baby.
The food that fuels the truck of loan duck, man.
3020 has been keeping the dogs fit.
Their coats look good.
They're keeping weight good.
They're not, well, I was just going to say they're not fat, but I do have a couple fatties
on the truck.
They're trying to skim a little winter weight off of, but they look good.
They feel good and they're performing really well.
Check them out.
It's Purina, baby.
Next up, Gunner Kennel's man's best kennel made in America, keeping your dog safe, rolling
down the road.
When it hits the fan, you want your dog protected.
If you want to get into a Gunner Kennel, slide into the DMs at loan duck on the Instagrams
and hit us up.
We'd be happy to help you get into a new Gunner Kennel.
Next up, shooter shooting, baby.
Kent cartridge, that bismuth.
I'm ready for turkey season mentally and physically ready.
I have yet to hear a gobbler in the South Carolina woods, but I'm listening every morning
when I'm Aaron dogs and you bet your bottom dollar that I'm going to take.
I usually hunt with my Satori, but I didn't bring it on the southern trip.
I've got my old Browning a five 20 gauge and it's going to I hope that I'll be lucky enough
to to sit in the woods and call old Tom Turkey in and let the bismuth fly.
Next up, DT systems.
This is a new addition.
We're really proud to be a part of their team helping innovate.
They've been innovating the e-collar industry for over 30 years.
And there's some really cool stuff coming down the pipes from them and us as a team.
You know our friends Ethan and Kat from Standing Stone.
They've been using DT forever.
The collar that we've been monkeying with is the 18 20 and that would be great for the
every dog trainer hunter.
They also have the wrapped or the M and the MR 1100.
Those are good units for backyard training, going to your retriever clubs and training
as well as in the duck blind.
So check them out at DT systems on Instagram and their website to learn more.
Their collars will be able to be found on the loan duck outfitters website here in the
next couple weeks.
Check them out.
All right, let's get into the show.
Callie, thank you for joining us.
Welcome to the show.
Do me a favor.
Tell everybody a little bit about yourself.
Hi guys.
I'm the editor in chief of gun dog magazine and associate publisher and been doing this
for a private in the hunting industry about seven years now.
I started more in the big game side of things, but I started.
I didn't start hunting until an adult actually.
I started my first job out of college was with a group called the US Sportsman's Alliance
and they are a conservation group that protects hunting essentially.
And I came in just honestly looking for a job and came in and loved it and fell in love
right away.
Someone took me turkey hunting and I was hooked after that.
But I grew up in a very rural small little town in Ohio.
So hunting wasn't strange to me.
I was already really outdoorsy.
I was a horseback rider and lived on a farm.
So it wasn't weird for me to move over into the hunting realm, but someone took me hunting
and then I got a dog.
And I didn't buy him as a hunting dog.
I just bought him as a companion dog.
But then one day I had some mentors take me out in the field and they said, bring him
along and I brought him and it turns out he had all this hunting instinct.
He's a lab.
So I like to say I credit him with making me a bird hunter.
So that's Lincoln, my lab.
So fast forward a few years.
My goal always was to be an editor.
I didn't know it would be an editor of a magazine, but I was fortunate enough to make my way
in the hunting industry and got hired at Peterson's Hunting magazine, which is a big game magazine.
So I fell in love with big game hunting because I could kind of double that with my love of
backpacking and the outdoors with now I was doing it with a gun in my hand.
And so I really got into that and then parallel that with bird hunting.
I got super into it.
I've had some great people to teach me the way and the rest is history.
And now I have my second bird dog and I have an English setter Jones and I can't tell you
the passion that lies behind upland bird hunting now.
I know you guys are big duck hunters, but I'm mostly an upland hunter.
But I love it and really have taken it to the next level.
So that's cool.
Well, just for your knowledge, Kevin and I both have setters as well.
Perfect.
I have two English setters sleeping on the bed right here.
So you are certainly in good company.
There's nothing as much as I love going out duck hunting and all that comes with that.
There's something extra special about just going for a walk.
Like you said, taking a gun, going for a walk and following the dogs.
Oh, yeah.
It's incredible.
And the fact you get to do it in a much cooler place out west than we do here.
Hey, do I live in Utah now?
I moved, I actually really specifically moved west to hunt.
So I was already spending most of my time in the fall.
I was driving and just living out of my car.
And finally, I was like, you know what?
I don't want to live out of my truck anymore.
So I moved to Utah just so I could just so I could hunt.
That's cool.
If you had to break down, like you said that bird hunting has become a passion of yours,
but like out of the fall, what is like, what does it look like?
What are you looking forward to most?
And then what is second and what is third?
Outside of the fall.
Outside of hunting behind my dogs.
No, no, no, no, just just the fall.
I guess.
Okay.
Is it mule deer?
It was a pie chart.
Yeah.
I truly love, you know, it's hard for everyone always ask me, what do you hunt?
And I'm like everything.
I love, I love big game hunting.
Mule deer.
I love mule deer.
Elle hunting.
I don't do, I don't do a lot of archery hunting.
I'm not.
I always tell people ask me if I'm an archery hunter.
I'm like, well, I've gone with hikes with my bow before.
Yeah.
Sure.
I'm mostly just a rifle hunter, but I'm doing a lot of elk hunting.
Do a lot of mule deer this past year.
I did a DIY drop camp with some friends of mine in Alaska for caribou.
So, you know, it's just a hardcore passion that I spend year round doing.
So truly.
How did you, I mean, this plan for this was to talk more about bird dogs, but that's
a, there's probably a story or two behind that.
Sure.
How did you land on that one?
Like what happened there?
Well, I'm also the editor of a magazine called Backcountry Hunter Magazine.
And that's just a special interest publication we do at my company.
And it's, it's dedicated to the off-grid, you know, big game hunters.
And so, um, couple of my girlfriends, you know, were like, I had one friend test who
had done this hunt many times in Alaska.
And it's, it's, they taking a bush plane, they drop you off in the tundra and say, we'll
see in seven days.
And she had done it a few years ago and one of us to go.
And of course we were all like, yeah, let's sign us up.
And so you hire a, like you can't be guided.
They just, you just hire a plane service and they take you to a spot.
They think you might hit the migration and they drop you off and you set camp and, and
you do your thing for seven days.
So, um, so when you say do your thing, like, what do you do?
Well, that's a good question.
You go and, um, you go and scout and you glass every day and you look for the caribou and
you hope a grizzly is not sneaking up behind you and, uh, you camp and in the most beautiful,
uh, remote, silent place you ever dream of.
And it's truly an awesome, amazing hunt.
I couldn't, we, we killed three caribou.
We only had one run in was a grizzly and other than that, it was truly magical, you
know, came back and, or hiking back with 80 pounds on our back one night and got back
around 11 p.m. and looked up and there's the northern lights and it was, it was awesome.
So.
That's fantastic.
What time of year did you go?
We went right at the end of August and we got back, uh, right on Labor Day.
So we got really lucky with weather.
I, I, if I ever did it again, I don't think I would ever be so lucky because we, we only
got rained on once and the week before that I actually got dumped on was snow.
And so we were lucky.
We, we had phenomenal weather.
Um, I mean, it was like 40s, 50s.
Um, and, and truly, when was this what you resist?
This was just this, this past August.
Oh man.
That's what the lead goal.
Yeah.
It was super fun.
And of course, and that, another magical, we're hiking out.
We had, we had to do multiple trips because in Alaska, you have to take, it's legally,
you have to take the meat first before you take the hide or the antlers.
So, you know, three caribou, you had to hike him back to camp.
So one of our last hikes back to camp were just exhausted and we probably got 80 pounds
on our back and we get to the top of this hill and this cubby of tarmigan flushes off
the rise and just flies down.
It was, it was pretty magical.
So it was cool.
That's so cool.
That's a Kevin got to go for his honeymoon to Alaska for fishing.
Um, but I've yet to go and it is a bucket list placed for me.
I'd like to go duck on it, but just them, them, I don't know if the word is majesty.
It's maybe corny, but like it's vast.
It's remote.
And like you said, it's quiet.
Like, so I did.
Yeah, I did.
So that was for caribou this time and then the year, or a year or two prior, I had gone
for ducks and then sprinkled in tarmigan.
Of course, I didn't have my dog.
That kind of stink, but it was, it was awesome.
Like the duck hunting is just phenomenal.
And then the, the tarmigan, um, we were trekking through.
They had the place where we were, we were on this place called Aadak Island.
They're not supposed to get snow, but this year, of course, they got snow and not just
snow, but like knee deep, waist deep snow.
So me and my friend, uh, Natalie were just trekking through this snow just for these,
everyone kept saying, you didn't, you want to chase those little white birds.
I'm like, yeah, man, like I don't think you understand when it's in it, when it's in you,
it's in you.
It's just such a passion.
And so we were hiking all over those mountains, you know, trekking through pot hole and through
snow and chasing tarmigan.
So it was, it was awesome.
I highly recommend.
So cool.
What have you done?
I feel like we've known together for 10 minutes now.
And I'm pretty jealous.
I mean, you've outlived us.
Yeah.
What the heck?
That's really cool.
I have not hunted, uh, Maine Northwoods for grouse.
So, um, I have not done a lot on the East Coast.
So you guys got me on that.
Fair enough.
Except we don't have a main either.
So thank you for reminding me.
We can call my, we can call my associate at her Nathan and he'll take us along.
He's got main tagged in.
So, but dream and all that.
So.
So you, you know, let's, let's double back to the dogs for a second.
You know, this first dog that you got wasn't supposed to be a hunting dog.
Talk about that mentors that got you in and pushed you to push this dog into the outdoors.
And you know, some of the memorable experiences that you've had with that dog.
Sure.
And, um, he probably, I, I, I, I was about two, I would say when he, we figured out that
he was a, he was really natural into hunting.
And so I had some great mentors along the way who I truly believe that, you know, especially
as an adult onset hunter, you really need someone to guide you and help you through
it all.
And so I was fortunate enough that I had plenty of people to do so.
And, but I, like Lincoln, I just, I knew I should say this.
I knew how to train obedience because in college, I had trained a service dog.
So I had that at least going for me.
And then when the bird stuff came along, I'm like, I have to train you.
Like you are clearly a natural.
So I just started picking up all the classic books, watching all these YouTube videos and
just honestly just trained him in my backyard.
And, um, you know, as fortunate I was in the hunting industry, can ask all these questions.
But he was a Labrador.
And so I felt like a good first dog for someone, especially a bird dog is a lab.
And then fast forward to why I had so many adventures with Lincoln.
He's just been a phenomenal he's traveled all over the country with me, hunted anywhere
from chucker to pheasant and everything in between.
And then I decided I took over gun dog three years ago and I decided I wanted to, you know,
touch my toes in the pointing dog world.
And that's when I started researching what kind of next breed I wanted to get.
And I ended up deciding on a setter because my grandpa had actually raised and trained
English setters when I was growing up.
So I knew the breed.
I knew how they were in the house.
I knew how they were in the field.
And so I did a lot of research, you know, I've bruised the internet.
I've bruised, you know, how it is on Instagram.
We all of us bird people follow each other and we all see, you know, we start asking,
where did you get your dog from?
And I finally decided on Northwoods bird dogs.
Yeah.
I had heard great things about Jerry and Betsy had gotten great recommendations and I at
the time I lived in Illinois, so I could drive up to see their kennels.
And I drove up and Jerry was just so welcoming and Betsy was so welcoming and they just walked
me around.
They told me how they, they're, you know, their techniques for breeding and what they
wanted out of their dogs.
And I just instantly, I literally walked away and called him and said, I'll put a deposit
down right now.
And so.
But you know how it goes when you, you know, you're paying for a well bred dog.
You got to wait a couple of years, right?
So during that time, I moved to Utah a year, fast forward a year to move to Utah.
And now I moved to a place where I don't have my family six hours away.
I don't have a support system.
And the next thing I got Jerry calling me saying, Hey, we got a dog ready for you.
And I remember I literally battled with, oh, I don't know if I can do this right now.
You don't know if I can do this.
Like I, I was worried that Lincoln, my lab would think that I didn't love him anymore,
that I didn't have time for him.
And I was worried that I was in a new place.
And I was honestly worried that I would fail, that I would fail in training the setter because
I didn't know the ins and outs of it.
And so Jerry talked me through it and I talked to a bunch of other people and they're like,
you're, you're, you're going to want to do this.
And now let's fast forward two and a half years since I got Jones and it's just absolutely,
I don't regret a second of that decision.
Has it been easy?
No.
Has it been fun to learn?
Absolutely.
Am I going to continue to have another setter later on life?
Absolutely.
So yeah, that's how I feel.
I will never go on with life without one.
And I'm a lab guy.
I mean, I think I own 12 labs and one setter and it's like, I'll, I'll always have a setter.
Absolutely.
I, I, I just, there's sweet nature and it says so awesome to see them, connect all the pieces
and go on point in the field.
I still to this day, like every time he goes on points, I'm like, oh, you know, wow, that
is awesome.
So I truly enjoy.
And he's still learning.
He's only two and a half years old.
He's not even close to being done yet with his training, but it's just, it's just awesome.
Have you done Chucker in Utah?
Oh, yeah.
Chucker, Huns, Coyle, you know, pheasant with him.
I went, took him down to Arizona Mearns and gambles this year.
We, we do it all.
So he's got a plenty of experience.
He's gotten plenty of birds in his face.
He's blown through plenty of points and he's also pointed some beautiful points.
So it's been cool.
Good for you.
What would be a piece of advice for someone who, you know, we are a majority of lab listeners.
Sure.
Right.
But, you know, we have like Nick Larson from, you know, up north and he's a grass guy, like
we was the one who talked to him again in Northwoods dog.
So well, that's something about right.
And I thought of, yeah, that's the first person that popped in my head when you said it.
You know, so, you know, we dabble in it and Kevin and I, I really do love Grouse and Woodcock
hunting.
It's, it is unbelievable to watch the dogs do their thing.
Absolutely.
And I, I'll train pointers once in a while, but going from a lab to a setter, what was
a transition and what were some things that you took away from, from that transition?
Yeah.
It sounds funny.
I'm real, I'm real keen on obedience.
My dogs, you know, I want you to listen.
I want you to be the calm dog in the room.
And I, honestly, there are some things I was worried about teaching the setter then that
I had taught the lab.
Like I was worried about teaching heel because I was worried that he wouldn't stretch out
if he was, he was too concerned with healing all the time.
I was worried at first about teaching sit because I'm like, well, I, you know, some people
will tell you some pointing, guys will tell you don't teach your, teach your pointing dog
to sit because then on the, on the point he'll sit.
And I'm like, well, that seems kind of weird, but okay.
And so I honestly came into it very scared of what I should teach and what I shouldn't
teach.
I even was worried about putting birds in his face too soon, you know, worried that it
would scare him.
And so now that I've gone through all of them, like, none of that, none of that, that all
goes out the door.
None of that.
Everything that I just said doesn't matter.
Teach him absolutely a sit and whoa are two very different commands, teach him to heal
and, and versus natural hunting drive when you're out in the field, like that's not going
to matter.
You know, like there's so many things that, that I did with him that I would not do with
the second one.
I'd put birds in his face at, you know, I'd put a wing in his face at eight weeks old,
you know, like things like that.
Just, you know, I, it just, everything that I thought and was worried about now that I
know I look back and I just, I laugh at myself honestly.
Yeah.
Oh, I definitely think people worry way too much and probably do too much.
Oh, yeah.
Now I want to develop a young dog.
I want to bring out that natural ability.
I want to do all the right things.
But then I think people overdo it and over worry and over complicate something that really
in the grand scheme of things is for a retriever, go get something and bring it back to me and
be happy.
Go swimming and be happy.
And for a pointing dog, go run around and point something and be happy.
Well, honestly, everyone's like, well, how do you get him to point?
And you know, therefore, the first few months, I, you know, they say, said, it's take a long
time to mature and I wish someone would have told me that before I freaked out and thought
my dog didn't have any point in him.
But there was a while there that I was worried that I'm like, what did I do wrong?
You know, he's just running through birds.
He's not stopping and blah, blah.
And then I finally realized as the months went on in this one day, he finally just stopped
on a dime and he pointed and I was like, oh my God, it just clicked.
And it's like, I cannot stress more that your dog has natural ability and it will find it.
You just have to let him be a bird dog.
You have to let him be a dog and he's going to figure out.
Now, of course, I'm not saying you don't want to do obedience and refine his hunt.
Of course, you have to do that, but he's going to get in.
It's going to click with him and the more birds you put in his face, the faster it's going
to click.
Yeah, I couldn't agree more.
And I would say that you are blessed to be in a situation where you can put that dog on
wild birds.
A lot.
Yep.
So maybe talk about that process a little bit.
Yeah, that.
So I'm not, we definitely train in the off season.
We train both on wild and of course, I do pigeons and try to refine.
I had, you know, I was trying to refine the, you're getting too close.
You're getting too close.
And of course, you learn that the dogs will learn that from wild birds.
If you, you know, you pressure a wild bird too much, then those birds are going to flush
and the dogs truly learn it.
You can tell in the field they connect it.
And so of course in the off season, I do both wild and planted birds, but there is a difference
between the two and the dogs will figure it out.
They'll figure out it's funny with Jones.
He knows when we're out does hunting plan quote unquote, hunting planted birds compared
to hunting wild birds.
There is a completely different help, you know, he'll give a little bit more room to a,
I'm sorry, he'll, he'll pressure a trap, a pigeon trap more than he will a wild bird.
And it's kind of funny to see how they can tell the difference, but they really can.
So I actually asked one of my trainer friends here, Talmadt Smedley, he writes for Gundog
as well.
And he's been helping me.
And I said, how do I get him to stop pressure and the, a pigeon, you know, trap too close?
And he said, well, treat it like a wild bird.
If he gives it to, if he gets too close to it, then you pop it, pop it right away.
And I started doing that last summer and he started giving it space, started giving it
pretty plenty of clearance because you're like, hey, we're not going to treat this any
different than, than as if this was a wild bird.
So, but yeah, the more, the more birds you can get in the dog's face.
Yeah, the more birds you can get in the dog's face.
And of course you, you don't want to run your dog on wild birds all summer long.
You're during their, they're nesting and breeding seasons, but, you know, so check with, you
know, local local stuff to make sure you're not because you want birds to hunt come fall.
So don't be giving them too much pressure.
Fair point and great point.
You also have a new adventure that's coming out with the show.
Can you walk everybody through that?
And like, that seems like a really awesome passion project and a great story.
Yeah.
So, um, Gundog went through a revamp two years ago where we just, we blew up the magazine.
We made it a big, beautiful, large format.
We blew up the website, made it really cool.
And so naturally my company owns the outdoor channel and the sportsman channel.
So naturally they come and they say, we want you guys to do a TV show and I'll be completely
honest and say, I didn't want to do a TV show.
I would like to hunt for fun and to have a camera in your face is a lot of pressure,
right?
Um, and I had a young dog and I'm like, Oh, this is, I don't think you guys understand
how hard it's going to be to film a wild upland bird show.
You know, it's not like these birds are holding still for a dog.
And so how did you explain that to people in like the TV?
Because it was, it was hard.
It was, we had many conversations about it.
I had many conversations where I said, listen, you're not going to get that beautiful up-close
shot of the dog's face where he's just, you know, it, it's not going to happen.
Um, you might, I guess, but not really.
And so I said, and the birds are going to look like little specks in the camera flushing
away.
Cause you know, they're, what, they're going to flush 30 yards away.
So anyways, they said, well, we trust you, give it a shot.
And so we're like, okay.
So I said, that means they don't trust you.
Oh, well, they basically said to me too bad you're doing a TV show.
So, um, but what we wanted from this show is we wanted something different than every
other TV show.
We wanted it to be about what we're passionate about and what our readers are passionate
about.
And I didn't want it to be a show where we're like, on day one, we did this.
And on day two, we did this.
It was going to be about the unique places we go, the unique people we hunt with.
And the dogs that are behind it.
And it's truly about the fat, the passion behind upland hunting and a little bit of duck
hunting sprinkled in there too.
And it's just about the uniqueness of our sport and how we all live and breathe upland
hunting.
And most importantly, the dogs that live and breathe the sport.
And so, um, we traveled all across, we did both, you know, the west, the mid, you know,
the Midwest and then, uh, did stuff on the east coast.
And I truly think that we created a pro, uh, you know, a TV show that is unique and that
people are going to enjoy.
We try to do things where I tried to tell them I wanted it to be more like discovery
channel, esque, where it's not just the hunting show, but we're doing cool things in between
like, how many times have you traveled somewhere to hunt birds and there's some really cool,
like part, like example, I go to Arizona, right?
And there's tombstone right there, like something unique about each place that we're going
or unique about the people that we're hunting with.
And then of course, we want to mix in dog training and unique things about that.
Um, so I truly think we created something that's going to be awesome.
And it airs April and April on the outdoor channel.
And I'm hoping that people will really like it.
And I hope they really like it because we've been signed up for season two.
So good for you.
Heck yeah.
That's awesome.
Tell us what, tell us what you want different and we'll do that next season.
So I'm going to be honest with you.
When you said you were, you brought up tombstone, you're like, you know, there's always something
about going somewhere new and like checking out the local, I thought you were going to
say pub.
Well, that too though, that too.
Yeah.
Cause like for me and Kevin, it's like we went to Michigan this year, we hunted and growled
some woodcock in Michigan and we went to the same pole dunk.
Do you remember what it was called?
Kevin big shout out if we can remember.
It was like a girl, but that lady, the bartender lady was a riot.
Yeah.
That was part of it too.
She was like 85 years old and she was, she just had every like one liner in the book.
All she did was poke fun at us and we just had an awesome, we just kept going back.
And so like, yeah, those like little experiences that when you take these road trips, you meet
someone local or taste local food or just get that high.
And that's part of it.
And that's, that's honestly, I'm glad you brought that up because that's what I told
them when we, they were first telling we had to do is I said, listen, there's some cool
things that we do about uplining.
Like, I don't know about you guys, but one of my favorite things is to, is to hunt either
in the morning or, and then go hunt in the morning and then go for like the greasiest,
nastiest diner you can find in little town.
Yes.
It's the best.
Yeah.
Best thing, and I, I told him, I said, I, I want to capture that.
I want, I want, I know it's weird to film people eating, but I'm telling you, these are
the best places you ever find.
It's some of the best people where you walk in and the old guys come there every morning
for their job.
Yes.
I can't wait to be that guy.
I think about it every time.
That's what I wanted to capture.
I wanted that.
So we'll do a little bit of that in there and something unique about each place.
And it's just, that's what I wanted.
I wanted up lenders, I should say sportsmen and women to feel like, yes, I know exactly
what that feeling is.
And I love it.
And where are they because we want to go?
Like that's what we wanted to capture.
That's really cool.
What are some of the special moments with you and Jones on, on the adventure that like
we can look forward to to maybe like we see it in the episode, but then like this is the
sneak peek story.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
We had a bunch of, you know, again, he was only two because we were filming this past
fall.
So he was still coming into his trying to figure everything out.
And so we had multiple, um, there was this cool, oh God, this was awesome.
We're hunting in Idaho with my friends, Deb and Jared.
And that's the other thing.
We always brought like friends, honestly, I kind of told him, I said, listen, if you
want to film a wild bird hunt, then I guess you're just going to have to follow me with
all my friends because I don't know what else you want me to do, you know?
So, um, we always had guests on the show.
And anyways, we're hunting up in Idaho for Huns and we're in this really remote awesome
spot and the camera crew.
You want to drop me a pen?
Yeah, exactly.
And the camera crew had thrown up the drone.
I think the, my poor camera crew, you know, we're all used to, you know, hunting and the,
the long miles and how hard it is, especially in the Tucker Hills and the pheasant fields,
these poor camera crew, I, I'm sure they were glad to be rid of me by the end of the season.
But anyway, so they had thrown up the drone because I think they were taking a break and
we're walking along this rim of this canyon and Jones goes on point and I'm like, oh,
this is epic.
And, you know, tons like to hang out on the edge of the, of the, of the rim of the canyon
because they like to flush down the canyon so that you can't get to them.
Anyway, so he goes on point and I'm walking and nothing flushes and then he, he redirects,
nothing, redirects.
And finally he's pinned him down and we got it all on camera where the, the Covey flushed
over the edge and I was able to bring one down.
And then Jones actually retrieves.
I know some setters don't.
And I, I think he truly picked it up from his lab sibling, but I saw Jones go over the edge
and all I saw next was him come back over that edge with that bird in his mouth and
I'm just like, that was awesome.
That was awesome.
Good for you.
That's epic.
It was cool.
That's really cool.
How many episodes are there going to be?
So that'll be 10.
We filmed all the way Idaho, Arizona, South Dakota, Maine, North Carolina.
Utah, trying to think of all of them.
So it's, it's all over the place.
Do you hunt quail in North Carolina?
Actually Nathan hunted woodcock.
Oh, cool.
Yeah.
North Carolina or South Carolina.
I can't remember.
Anyways, he was hunting with some, with Gordon setters down there with Steve Faust.
So he's got some amazing, amazing dogs and he hunted Maine.
He lived in Maine last year, so he knows the, the grouse woods very well.
So he ended up there, which is, you know, Maine is just got this cool history and lure
behind, you know, lure behind it.
So I'm excited for that episode.
We hunted swans here in Utah.
Oh, I tagged along.
My friend had the tag, not me.
So that was cool.
And other than that, I mean, we're just all over the place.
It's, it's pretty epic.
We're from chucker to huns to quail to grouse.
So.
That's really cool.
What's it like being the editor in chief of, of a magazine?
How did, like, when you're like, oh, I'm interviewing for this job and I got it.
You're like, editor in chief.
Come on.
Like, what is it like day to day?
What do you, what do you work on?
What did you get you excited about it?
So I'm very fortunate to work with some amazing talented writers and photographers.
And I have a great team here behind gun dog.
We've got Nathan Ratford, who's our associate editor.
We've got Tim Nair, who is the, the brains behind the beautiful design that you see a
gun dog.
And then we got Chris Ingram, who works on the digital side, a great team.
And then it honestly, it was a dream come true for me.
I've always wanted to be an editor of magazine.
And basically that means I come, you know, I help populate the ideas of what we want to
see in each issue.
I work with, you know, assign it to writers or we write it ourselves.
And then we, you know, we work to make sure everything's factual and, and design beautifully.
And I'm fortunate to have so many knowledgeable people in this industry who are willing to
write for gun dog and share their knowledge with our readers and some photographers who
capture the most beautiful images of dogs you can see.
And so honestly, I always tell people, my job doesn't suck because I just stare at photos
of dogs all day.
So.
Yeah, it's pretty good.
I asked for it.
Yeah.
One of my favorite things from gun dog is like your, your puppy.
Oh, yeah, the puppy issue.
Yeah, it's like, come on.
Greatest man.
You have all time.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
Everybody's picking that up.
Oh, yeah.
And actually, well, truly last year, the puppy issue sold the best on new stand out of all
of our titles in like 20 years.
And I'm like, well, yeah, it's got a puppy on the cover.
Like what else?
No brainer.
Yeah, no brainer.
That's fantastic.
That's super cool.
Tell me, I would love to learn a little bit more or just like, I really enjoy the memorable
retreats.
Like that story that you told about Jones, you know, on the rim.
Like, all right, but you had a dog before he, I can see him in the corner.
Oh, yeah.
Like the moments that clicked with him of a place that you went that just was like me
and him are a team now.
So about that.
So well, so early on in his career, he was just, I just naturally had a lot of fun.
And I don't know, you know, you have that, you have that connection with your dog and
Lincoln is that dog for me.
You always have your lifetime dog.
And Lincoln, honestly, people tell me that he speaks English and I truly believe it.
And we have just.
Does he have an accent?
Yeah, he should actually.
He's like, he's like the bear Arnold.
He's like, he's a giant dog.
Anyways, he's amazing.
But he's a big dude.
He's a big dude.
So we've always had that connection, always had that connection.
And he was so easily to train.
I don't know if he's just, I don't just smart, naturally smart, what it is.
But there have been multiple times when I'm like, Oh, that's a hard retrieve.
And he just looks at me and he follows the hand signals there.
You know, one time we were hunting chucker up in Idaho and this bird went down.
It probably I'm not, I'm really not exaggerating a typical fishtail, but it probably went at
least 75 yards away.
One of those that wasn't hit well enough.
And on all the guys looked at me and they're like, Oh, that bird's gone.
And I'm like, Lincoln's all it go down and he gets way down there and I'm standing at
the top of the room in this canyon and he's looking back up at me and I'm giving him the
back and over signs.
And there he goes, picked up that bird and brings it back, you know, this 75 yard retrieve
in Idaho and it was just truly epic.
And I just can't ask for more.
But, you know, they always say, trust your bird dog in this year.
So he got really sick this year.
He's nine now.
And actually it kind of stuck because at the beginning of the TV show, right when we're
starting filming, Lincoln gets deathly ill and they never did figure out what was wrong.
But I went to bed one night in October kind of saying my goodbyes to him because I thought
it was going to be the end and you know, that's, that's never fun and never easy.
And he ended up pulling through never did really find out what was wrong, but it was
one of those where you know, he won't eat and he's puking and he probably lost 15 pounds.
But anyways, so as the season progressed, I, we decided I was hunting it up in South Dakota
with the Dawkins, Tom Docking and Tina Docking and me and Tina decide Lincoln's well enough
to go out and hunt.
And so we take him out and right away, he flushes a bird for me, where he flushes it
over this row of corn and it goes down.
And of course I keep an eye on it and I'm like, Lincoln, come on, come on, come in here.
And he goes left and I go right and thinking I'm smarter than him and I saw the bird go
down, you know, and I can't find it.
I can't find the bird and I can't find him and these tall corn, corn stalks and the wind
is just roaring and I'm yelling his name and I can't, he's not and Lincoln to like always
come.
So he just great at obedience.
He always comes to his name and he won't come.
And I'm thinking, Oh no, like he's gone down in this corn.
He's, you know, he's passed, he's passed out.
He's dead.
Like what have I done?
I'm just so upset with myself, right?
And I get, I get, I come out of the corn.
I see him at the end of the row and he's looking for me.
And I'm like, Oh, okay.
So I run down the end of the coat, but he's gone back in the corn and he can't find me
because of the wind.
And I'm thinking, well, our birds lost.
My dog's dead.
Like what have I done?
And what do you know about two minutes later?
He comes walking out of the corn and he's got that bird in his mouth.
That's awesome.
And he had added the whole time and he was looking for me.
You know, it was all slobbery because he had been looking for me in minutes.
And that was the, like always trust your bird dog.
They're smarter than you.
And they know exactly where that bird went.
You know, you thought you were smart, but I was, you know, thinking my dog was dead,
but really he was just retrieving the bird and trying to find me.
So that's so cool.
That's really cool.
You know, as you've, as your career has, has gone, right?
Like now editor in chief, a host of a, of a TV show, what would be like, I got, well,
you know what, now I throw the TV show, I had a question pop back in my head, but like
next season is, is there bucket list places that you've just are like, Oh yeah, I'm going
here.
I guess it depends on what my budget is.
But yeah.
That's also a good question.
Like you get to just be like, you know, I really think Argentina.
Yeah, I don't know.
I heard that's cool.
Like we should do that.
And like some of this.
Yeah, I asked the question because, you know, this year, I, this year kind of was
all DIY stuff.
So I'm like, Oh, we're keeping it cheap.
And I said, well, what's the budget this year?
Because we're running out of DIY, you know, ideas.
We've hit all my spots here in the West.
So my camera crew wants to go to Hawaii.
They've got some friends there who can hunt.
That reminded me of my camera cruise from Florida.
So we did an episode in Florida where we did snipe.
And then another cool aspect, we went deep sea fishing.
Can you know, like we're in Florida, like, let's add to the show.
So anyways, they want to go to Hawaii because we can hunt all kinds of upland birds there.
But at the same time, they know some guy who is the spearfisherman and he can take us
out and you know, I'm like, guys, I don't know how much is going to cost to send like
four people to Hawaii, but we'll have to wait and see.
It seems reasonable.
Yeah, it's for the content.
It's cool.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And of course Alaska is always on the bucket list and all kinds of stuff.
So if you guys, and again, if you guys want to go hunt, let me know because it's always
friends who we were like, let's go hunt and we'll just have a camera guys tag along with
us.
So let's do it.
We'll get the the setter crew together and go get some grouse.
That would be cool.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That would be really cool.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Some, some main grouse.
That sounds like a ticket.
You know, I would love to do that because I hunt grouse here in Utah.
It's funny.
Rough grouse in Utah in the West act a lot different than they do in the Northwoods.
I want everyone to know that.
Okay.
So fly up in, you know, in the Northwoods, they, they flush and you never see them again
out here.
They fly up into a tree and they sit there.
And so I always tell people that when I'm out, like big game hunting, I see them all
over the place.
But when I'm actually out hunting them with my dogs, can never find them.
So I would love to have you guys.
It's funny you say that because I feel like whenever I talk with people who just deer
hunt, they're always like, Oh, it's got to be the dumbest thing ever.
Like I bust them in the woods all the time when I'm out deer hunting, like, like, I don't
know how to explain it, but it's very different.
You just, it's different.
I don't know.
I hunted, I hunted in, um, I was up that pine ridge grouse camp with Jerry and, and Nick
Larson.
And that was my first time hunting roughs in the Northwoods.
And I was like, how do you guys shoot these things?
And you guys know, like you're in those thick alders and there's trees everywhere.
It's just a, just a spray and pray basically because how, and I was lucky.
I brought one down.
I literally just pointed my gun and just pulled the trigger because trying to, to walk through
all of that and then get your gun barrel up and swing like, whoa, kudos to those.
You're like half falling the whole time and just trying to figure out where the dog is.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's basically it.
Yeah.
And good.
Like you might hear from, I never, half the time we heard him, I never even saw him like
kudos to those guys.
Like that takes some skill.
So it's really, that's why I love it the most.
Not only at the most, but between that and duck hunting, it's like, I, I equated to trout
fisher men and women like, you might catch a trout.
It's about the tie, you know, tying flies and like the experience and this and that.
And it's like, if you can hear three grouse, see one grouse and pull the trigger, that's
like an awesome day.
Right.
That's pretty good.
Yeah.
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And I got to pull the trigger.
And I got to pull the trigger.
And I got to pull the trigger.
And I got to pull the trigger.
And I got to pull the trigger.
And I got to pull the trigger.
And I got to pull the trigger.
And I got to pull the trigger.
And I got to pull the trigger.
And I got to pull the trigger.
And I got to pull the trigger.
And I got to pull the trigger.
And I got to pull the trigger.
And I got to pull the trigger.
And I got to pull the trigger.
And I got to pull the trigger.
And I got to pull the trigger.
And I got to pull the trigger.
And I got to pull the trigger.
And I got to pull the trigger.
And I got to pull the trigger.
And I got to pull the trigger.
And I got to pull the trigger.
And I got to pull the trigger.