Andy Shaver: Guiding 90 Days, Running The Big Honker & Stories From West Texas (Ep 756)
I think it's been a positive for us, honestly.
Matt Harrison:Yeah. I know a cohost that's kinda like that. The jab a lot.
Jimbo Robinson:They do me
Andy Shaver:jab. Right.
Matt Harrison:No. He's great.
Jimbo Robinson:Oh, you're talking about me? Yeah. But I thought we did pretty good together, Matt.
Andy Shaver:He's he's throwing that right at you, Jimbo.
Jimbo Robinson:I know. Well, yesterday on here, we had Duck Hodges, and both of them, all they talked about was how old I was.
VO:The following episode of the DU Podcast features a video component. For the full experience, visit the Ducks Unlimited channel on YouTube, subscribe, and enjoy. Can we do a mic check, Everybody, welcome back to the Ducks Unlimited Podcast. I'm your host, Doctor Mike Brasher. I'm your host, Katie Burke. I'm your host, doctor Jerad Henson. And I'm your host, Matt Harrison. Welcome to the Ducks Unlimited Podcast, the only podcast about all things waterfowl. From hunting insights to science based discussions about ducks, geese, and issues affecting waterfowl and wetlands conservation in North America. The DU cast sponsored by Purina Pro Plan, the official performance dog food of Ducks Unlimited. Purina Pro Plan, always advancing. Also proudly sponsored by Bird Dog Whiskey and Cocktails. Whether you're winding down with your best friend or celebrating with your favorite crew, Bird Dog brings award winning flavor to every moment. Enjoy responsibly.
Jimbo Robinson:Welcome back to another episode of the Ducks Unlimited Podcast. I am your host today, Jimbo Robinson, alongside host Matt Harrison. And on the other end of the computer network, whatever you wanna call it, is, as Jeff would say, the world famous Andy Shaver. What's up, Andy?
Andy Shaver:Thank you guys for having me. Excited to be here.
Jimbo Robinson:A little flip the script moment for us. A little bit. You know, you host podcast every single day, it seems like, but it's our turn to host you this time, so we're excited. So why don't you give the listeners just a little bit about Andy, what you do, and then we'll kick it off and have some fun.
Andy Shaver:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So Jeff Stanfield is my stepdad.
Andy Shaver:He married my mom in 1997, and he adopted two young boys. So I was I was 10 whenever, actually, I was nine whenever Jeff came on the stage, and then my brother was four, and he took us under his wings, showed us the ways of hunting, and then I fell in love with hunting at a very young age. And then he has the guides the guide outfitter out here in Knox City, Stamford Outfitters. He started that in '92 or '93. The years differ depending on when you talk to Jeff.
Andy Shaver:But, yeah, fell in love with hunting. I started as a helper guide whenever I was 12, 13 years old, and then I started full time guiding whenever I could start to drive. And then I guided all through college, and then came back out here after we got married. My wife and I, we got married. She's also from Knock City, from the little town.
Andy Shaver:So came back home, started guiding full time full time, which is different than on weekends and holidays. And then we started the podcast eight years ago, I think. So ever since then, it's been been
Jimbo Robinson:a rollercoaster. Golly. It doesn't seem that long ago. No. No.
Jimbo Robinson:Especially not for you. Yeah.
Andy Shaver:It doesn't. But, you know, you do a thousand I think we're, like, what did we release? 1,051 regular episodes.
Matt Harrison:Wow.
Andy Shaver:Not including bonus football episodes and just bonus podcast that we seem to do all the time.
Matt Harrison:What's been your best episode?
Andy Shaver:Oh, we've got a couple. We've got a bunch. Jimbo Robinson is up there. Don't say that. Yeah.
Andy Shaver:No. We kind of our big the the one that really launched us was when we had the Prince of Poachers on, Charles Beatty. He's got a controversy story. People love controversy, but he would he would sneak into the King And Kennedy Ranch here in Texas, and he would now this was back in the seventies before poaching was a felony. So he would sneak onto the King And Kennedy Ranches, and, yeah, basically, he'd go out there for two weeks at a time, and big deer was what he was after.
Andy Shaver:So that was the big episode that kinda threw us in front of a lot of listeners. So
Jimbo Robinson:Wow. Alright, Andy. On on when I get the opportunity to guest host every once in a while, I like to do a series called the flock shot. All you gotta do is answer the questions. They're gonna be fast.
Andy Shaver:Yep.
Jimbo Robinson:Alright. Geese or ducks? Geese. Oh, favorite color Gatorade? Orange.
Jimbo Robinson:Do you know what the flavor is? Orange. It's the easiest one. Jordan or LeBron? Jordan.
Jimbo Robinson:Manning or Brady? Brady. Over and under or semi auto?
Andy Shaver:Semi auto.
Jimbo Robinson:One thing you cannot live without.
Andy Shaver:Coffee and sins. One thing
Jimbo Robinson:you No.
Andy Shaver:I can live without sins. Coffee is is my big thing.
Jimbo Robinson:Well, that's one one thing you do every day. Coffee. I guess would be coffee. One thing you must travel with.
Andy Shaver:Coffee.
Jimbo Robinson:Good lord. What about Jesse? Can't live without Jesse?
Andy Shaver:I thought you said travel with.
Jimbo Robinson:I know, but I was thinking about, well, you one thing you can't live without.
Andy Shaver:Yeah. I mean, well, I make my own coffee. I make our coffee. So I mean, she'd be up there, but
Jimbo Robinson:I know. Coffee. Be tough.
Matt Harrison:So you would rather chase geese than ducks? Thousand percent.
Jimbo Robinson:Yeah. So let's Wait. Alright. Yeah. I need a little bit a little bit
Matt Harrison:of the the background here. Are you snow goose? No. God, no.
Andy Shaver:No. Come on. Where you? Look. I got all my teeth.
Jimbo Robinson:Told you. All right. So East Texas, when did y'all season start?
Andy Shaver:West Texas?
Jimbo Robinson:West Texas. Yeah. He got me on Matt over here talking about snow geese.
Andy Shaver:We start the first weekend in November. Well, last year was, like, November 1, so just depending on how it falls. So Halloween to November 6 is typically when we start, and then we run through the January. Last weekend in January, duck season closes. We always stop taking on paid paid hunters when duck season closes, which didn't really matter because last year, we didn't have any ducks.
Andy Shaver:But our season runs to the first weekend in February.
Matt Harrison:Yeah. Wow.
Andy Shaver:So long season. And we start with dove hunters in September. We run every weekend from September to goose season with dove hunters, and then last year, there were a couple couple weeks there where we had Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday hunters of dove hunters. So busy.
Jimbo Robinson:All right. So a normal season, y'all start y'all have dove hunters, so that kind of kicks off your season. So, like, how many like, when I think of dove hunters, I think, like, Argentina. How many dove hunters do y'all run through?
Andy Shaver:Like, 50 or 60?
Jimbo Robinson:Wow. A weekend or a week? Every weekend. Good lord. Yeah.
Jimbo Robinson:Do you have to do as much then as you do during goose season?
Andy Shaver:No. No. It it it's it's pretty easy. You know, we we've got our fields that are, you know, perpetually whole birds and, you know, we'll rotate hunters around to different places. But it's just Friday and Saturday, so guys come in Friday.
Andy Shaver:We take them to a spot. They hunt it. Usually, they'll hunt the same spot Saturday morning, and then Saturday evening and Sunday morning, we we rotate places on where they go, take them to a different spot they hadn't seen, got birds in it. That way we're kinda managing the pressure.
Matt Harrison:So y'all I
Andy Shaver:mean, other than that, it's I mean, it's we're doing meals, and guys are staying out here like normal, though.
Jimbo Robinson:So Do you have so you have guides that come in for that too?
Andy Shaver:No. No. It's just Jeff, Tony, myself, and then last year, we had a helper guide, Fisher. He came out here July and kinda helped Tony get the lodge in order, and then he kinda took a little bit of took a little bit of the weight off, showing people around and everything.
Matt Harrison:That's awesome. So y'all guide for doves and geese?
Andy Shaver:Yep. Yep. Dove in September, and then whenever waterfowl season kicks up. We I mean, on on a wet year, years that we do have ducks, we'll do duck hunts also. We do sandhill crane hunts.
Andy Shaver:I I don't really enjoy doing those. Those are pretty tough a lot of times, can be. So goose season is our bread and butter. And then this time of the year, we've actually got a group of pig hunters out here right now. So I think there's, like, six of them.
Andy Shaver:They booked the lodge for three, four days, come out here, do some pig hunting, and then do some spring turkey hunting here probably in April,
Jimbo Robinson:a little bit.
Andy Shaver:We we we don't we don't we don't it's not many turkey hunters, so I'm kind of selfish with turkeys. I like to chase them myself.
Jimbo Robinson:I love turkey hunting. So let's back up to eight years ago. How where did the podcast come from for you?
Andy Shaver:So what led us to starting the podcast is we were just wanting more brand awareness, and I googled waterfowl podcast. Two of them came up. I did a little bit of digging on them. It didn't seem like they were posting consistently. So I figured that that would be an avenue that we could take.
Andy Shaver:I felt like with Jeff's knowledge of running the business for, you know, twenty five years at that point, my my guiding career, I figured that we could pretty much talk to any waterfowl hunter and carry our own weight. Like, I figured we had the knowledge to to carry on a an intelligent conversation. And anybody that's ever met Jeff knows that he's a bit of a people person. So, you know, when we first started, it was more like geared to the how to aspect of waterfowl hunting. So we would talk about spreads.
Andy Shaver:We'd talk about calling, flagging, scouting. We started out doing, like, one or two a week, and then we got kinda got the idea, like, let's do three a week. Well, when you do three episodes a week, you're gonna run through the how to pretty quick. And we got to, like, episode 38 or 40, and I was like, man, we're gonna have to we're gonna have to call an audible here. Like, I'm running out of ways to tell people how to kill ducks and geese.
Andy Shaver:So we started with interviewing people. Started with people in the waterfowl industry, and then there's only a handful of those when you're doing three week too. So we started talking to people kinda outside of the genre of waterfowl hunting. And I think that's kinda what separates our podcast from most is that you've got a good story, like, we really don't mind talking to you. You know, if you're entertaining and interesting, no matter if you're we've had we've had Ronnie Jackson on, he was George Bush's White House physician, Obama's White House physician, Trump's White House physician.
Andy Shaver:We've had MMA fighters on. We've just had our jujitsu coach on. Like, we just like talking to people and casting a wide net because not every you know, whenever you're in a blind, you're not really talking about hunting all that much. You do a little bit. Like, that can be the common thread, but most of the time when you're in a waterfowl sharing a waterfowl blind with somebody, you're talking about other stuff.
Andy Shaver:And that's kind of what we wanted our podcast to feel like was you're sitting in the blind with us and it's just a regular conversation.
Jimbo Robinson:What's it like because you've kind of separated yourself on the podcast, I feel like over time with Jeff. Do you feel like that, you know, being cohost with somebody else that you kinda have to take two different roles, or what have what does that look like with a cohost that you also work with that's also your stepdad? How does that look and feel?
Andy Shaver:Well, it's made it easier because Jeff and I, you know, we're two different people, so we're gonna have two different opinions on things. And I mean, it's really made it easier. A lot of times, you know, you listen to podcasts and there's kind of that awkward pause of, hey. Is it your turn? Is it my turn?
Andy Shaver:But just having a family dynamic and being close and having a relationship with Jeff that I do, it's pretty it's pretty flawless to where he can interject, I can interject, and it it feels natural. There's not this awkward pull and push and all this other stuff that a lot of guys have when they're not as familiar with their cohost. So I think it's been a positive for us, honestly.
Matt Harrison:Yeah. I know a cohost that's kind of like that.
Jimbo Robinson:The jib a lot. They jib and jab.
Andy Shaver:Right.
Matt Harrison:No. He's great.
Jimbo Robinson:Oh, you talking about me? Yeah. Matt thought we did pretty good together, Matt. Yeah.
Andy Shaver:Yeah. He's he's throwing that right at you, Jimbo. I
Jimbo Robinson:know. Well well, yesterday on here, we had Duck Hodges, and both of them, all they talked about was how old I was. Went home last went home last night, played baseball with the kids, did everything. Did I hit the curtain? No.
Jimbo Robinson:Woke up this morning, worked out like, I am young today. I feel young.
Matt Harrison:You don't look
Andy Shaver:young. Old. You're what? 38? You're same as age as I'm
Jimbo Robinson:Remember? Just turned 40 this fight, sir.
Matt Harrison:You're 38, Annie, so you're still young.
Andy Shaver:I'm 30 yeah. I'm still young.
Jimbo Robinson:Yeah. Annie's My back Annie's
Andy Shaver:body's falling part two. My back does hurt today.
Jimbo Robinson:He does jujitsu all the time.
Andy Shaver:Try to. Try to. Trying to keep my ears in shape. Jesse said she Jesse said I had to wear those earmuffs if I ever got cauliflower ear.
Jimbo Robinson:So Do you
Andy Shaver:have got ketosis.
Jimbo Robinson:Have you gotten it yet?
Andy Shaver:Yeah. A little bit on my right ear. That was a whole thing in October. I was trying to hide it from her, and we were sitting in church, and I saw her look over at me, And I knew the gig was up because it was that ear that she was looking at, and I could just feel her eyes searing into that ear. And I was like, she's gonna have something to say about this.
Andy Shaver:So right after church, was like, yours pretty swollen up. Yeah. It's not that bad. And like we got to puff pushing on it and a lot of fluid in it. So I had promised her that if it ever started to swell up, that she could drain it, pull the fluid from it.
Andy Shaver:So that's how that's what I got to do that night whenever I got home was she got to stick a needle in my ear.
Matt Harrison:Yeah.
Andy Shaver:That cannot It feel bad. It was bad. I didn't know what to expect the first time. So actually, like, towards the end of it, it actually kind of was a little bit of relief because it was a lot of pressure in the ear, pretty hot. And whenever she would drain it, it it felt a little bit better actually afterwards.
Andy Shaver:But, yeah, that initial needle going in your ear, I'm not a fan of. I don't have any ear piercings or anything like that, so I didn't know what it was gonna feel like, but it basically feels exactly like you think it would. Back my kid's watching, so, like, I can't I can't be a wimp. Like, you know, just send it.
Jimbo Robinson:Full send. She did.
Matt Harrison:Back to the hunting aspect. So y'all got roughly from start to finish, how many days is that a year roughly, give or take?
Andy Shaver:The November to the January, ninety days.
Matt Harrison:So ninety days. So during that ninety days, y'all are wide open. What does this time of year look like for y'all? Like, what are y'all doing during the downtime? And I know that there's no such thing as downtime as a full operation like y'all are, but what does this time of year look like?
Andy Shaver:Yeah. So I've talked about this quite a bit. Like, February, it's a tough month for me, and it always was. Like, especially before the podcast when I didn't have something else to do, I was always like my uncle and I, we had a construction company. We we had a remodeling company.
Andy Shaver:So this time of year, we would do do we'd spend all of our resources, you know, in the in the remodeling game. But for a long time, for a couple years there, you know, February was a pretty bleak month. Not much going on. There's nothing. TV sucks.
Andy Shaver:There's no turkey hunting. So February was always just kind of this, where do I fit in? And then we had kids, and I'd been gone so much, you know, chasing ducks and geese, guiding, you know, it's just kinda like you get thrown back into the mix of of having a family. It's kinda like, where do I fit into all this? Because I'm I'm I leave at 04:00 in the morning, and a lot of times I get home at, you know, 07:00 because we do meal dinner out here is at 06:00.
Andy Shaver:So by the time I talk to clients and get trailers organized, I'm back home by about seven. When you got a young family, you know, they're kinda wrapping their day up. So once hunting season ends, it's just kinda like, okay. Where do I fit in? So there was always just kinda this reemergence in February.
Andy Shaver:But now that now that we have the podcast, kinda making up for lost times. During hunting season, we don't get to devote as much attention to the podcast just because Jeff and I are kinda on different schedules. I'm doing the hunts. He's out here. You know, he handles everything.
Andy Shaver:He comes in here. He scouts in the morning for us while I'm out hunting. He comes into the office by about 09:30 or ten. And then at lunch, he's out there, you know, talking to customers, and then we scout at four. And then at dinner time at six, he's back out talking to customers.
Andy Shaver:So it's kind of hard to get our two schedules to align perfectly to do as many podcasts. So now that February is here, we are full blown, full sand podcast season again, Getting back with our guests. You know, we got some other stuff going on. But, yeah, this time of year, it's all about podcast. And I got two kids, 11 and seven.
Andy Shaver:So baseball season's getting ready to fire up. And I'm sure I'll be a volunteer coach on those two things and then summer travel. And then crazy enough, like, you think you got all this time in the off season, but it's really not like that. Like, you got a couple of months. February is pretty slow.
Andy Shaver:March is a little bit slow. I turkey count as much as I can. In April, our season goes to mid May. So I turkey count as much as I can. That really just leaves June to not really have much.
Andy Shaver:And then July show season starts. August, you're getting the lodge ready to go. In September, you got people coming in. So the off season is not what it used to be anymore. Yeah.
Jimbo Robinson:What is I mean, you know, I'm sure that plenty of our listeners have listened to y'all's podcast before, and Jeff always talks about, you know, on this podcast, the show season and what it used to be. I mean, you're obviously closer, you know, in our generation, which show season was always something that, you know, I heard about, but we would go to a few shows when I was a kid, but mostly they were all local. Does it seem like show season has changed the way that people travel to them now?
Andy Shaver:Yeah. So I think they're more like events type type things, like like like what you guys have in they're in Memphis, which great show, best show ever. It's it's fantastic top to bottom, But I think it has become more of a spectacle. You know, we just got done with NWTF, and that's a big show, and it's just this big spectacle. But I think what you're seeing now is like more brands putting on their own shows like Dive Bomb, like Shin Gears.
Andy Shaver:Shin Gears got their film festival. So I think everybody's kinda taking their own spin on what the show is and then getting everybody to come to it. Back whenever I was a kid and we were going to shows, we would mainly just hit Texas. We would hit there were two or three big shows in Texas. In August, we would hit, and that was basically it.
Andy Shaver:But now, you know, we we've teamed up with BOSS. We go to, you know, any of the big shows that BOSS is at, we're also at. So we're hitting we're hitting a lot of the major shows now.
Jimbo Robinson:And y'all just helping BOSS promote what they're doing, or y'all both y'all promoting Stanfield too?
Andy Shaver:No. No. No. No. We're just we're just there for BOSS.
Andy Shaver:Just there for BOSS. And it's a good way for us to kinda get out, and, you know, we have listeners all over the country, so it gives us a it gives us a way to be where the hunter be where the hunters are and be where our listeners are and shake hands, meet people, you know, do that sort of thing. So
Jimbo Robinson:When you're looking at your podcast, how do you gauge success on your podcast, Andy?
Andy Shaver:Man, I'll be honest with you, I just turn on the microphone and go. Like, if I you know, if I got we get a lot of hate mail, we get a lot of love letters, I just try to not care about either one. Right? Like, if I'm not gonna give the time to hate mail, I I try not to give the, you know, a whole lot of attention to somebody that agreed with me, but I've for my own sanity, I've kinda quit looking at the praise or the hate mail just because it's a deep, dark rabbit hole when you start going down that road. So really, like, I don't even look anymore.
Andy Shaver:Like, I just press record, I upload it, and I'm on to the next one.
Jimbo Robinson:Does Jeff
Andy Shaver:look? I just don't have the bandwidth to be like, boy, people really hated that, or boy, people really love that. I just kinda put my head down and grind.
Jimbo Robinson:Well, it probably helps, Matt. Maybe, you know, running, you know, from DU social media side, obviously, we get both as well, but it probably if you don't look, it sometimes it can't change your mindset to what you should and shouldn't do. Just keep doing what you've planned to do. Right? Yeah.
Andy Shaver:Yeah. And, I I just I got a I got a mantra. I post in ghost. If I do something on Instagram I post in ghost. Post it, and I don't look at it.
Andy Shaver:If it gets a million views, if it gets seven views, it's all the same to me because I don't look
Matt Harrison:at it. Yeah. You're you're all we've had this conversation a lot, whether it be host Jim Ronquist or even Devlin, we had a conversation outside of the podcast yesterday is, you know, it doesn't matter how much good you do, you know, how much you you give, or what you you do in your respective lane, you're always gonna have, you know, the negative. Now, of course, we all what we do is right, you know, in my eyes, and I believe we're doing it for the right cause, and I believe the effort that we put into it is is special, you know, and I I believe that good comes from it, but not everybody sees that, you know, but you can't allow the naysayers in that aspect to affect what you're doing, like Jimbo said, right, you can't, you know, look at that or read that and be like, oh, well, that one person, you know, said that, so I've gotta change what I do. Because then what you're standing up for and what you believe in, it's you really don't believe in it if you're gonna allow one person to to change your perspective on why you're doing it.
Matt Harrison:So, you know, it doesn't matter what you do or what you say, if you have a following, there are going to be people that disagree, and that's okay. Right? That's what me and Jim Ronquist talked about years ago, is the problem with the world today, and it's in every aspect in my opinion, this is this is my opinion, but nobody can respectfully disagree. Right? I think that that's a thing a lot of people struggle with is, look, just because men, I guarantee we can talk about sports or hunting or something, and we would find something we disagree upon, but when we walk out that door, I'll look at you and I'll say, you know that?
Matt Harrison:Look, that's your opinion, right? MJ or Jordan. Right. Yeah. Look, that's your that's your opinion, but there's no way we we told this to Devlin yesterday, how how do you gauge the best duck collar you've ever hunted with?
Matt Harrison:There's no way to, And a lot of these topics that you talk about or you believe in or you put forth effort into, there's no way to to visually see what's better, what's greater, so it's an opinion. So let's respectfully disagree, right? Like, hey, look, you believe that? I'm gonna tell you why I believe what I believe, at the end of day, if you decide to, you know, believe different, look, man, we'll be friends. I'll hang out with you.
Matt Harrison:I'll talk to you. I'll hunt with you, but, you know, let's respectfully disagree.
Andy Shaver:So we just right before we got on here, we had a guy that he's a family friend. He grew up with my younger brother, graduated with my younger brother, but he is running as a democratic candidate in Texas. Okay? So automatically, like, you know, alarm bell sound. He's got the d next to his name, but and this was I think this was our third interview with him.
Andy Shaver:But, like, what would and we talked about this off air. It's like, we agree on nine 85 to 90% of everything that is was said. Like, there's that little bit on the fringe that he sees it one way, Jeff and I see it another way. Are either one of us right? Maybe.
Andy Shaver:But, like, we're both right in each other's minds, and we're not gonna say anything to him that's gonna change his mind. He's not going to say anything to us that's really going to change our mind. So it's just like, we got to agree with where we are, and we got to do our best to articulate why we don't agree with what you said. And a lot of it is opinion based.
Jimbo Robinson:And educating people. Right? Mhmm. And educating people. Mean, would The question I was about to ask Andy is, have you learned anything from things he've said that have made you think, you know what?
Jimbo Robinson:I may have been wrong in my in my what I thought about that.
Andy Shaver:Yeah. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. And, like, that that's one thing that I think kind of since the start of the podcast is there's not many hills that I'm willing to die on anymore.
Andy Shaver:Like, before we started the podcast, it was like black and white. You know what I mean? And then after the podcast, after talking to so many people, it's like, I don't agree with you, but I can see where you were coming from when you said that. So I'm I'm I'm Sweden a lot more than I am now than I was whenever we started the podcast. Like, was black and white, and if you disagreed, then you're just a fool.
Andy Shaver:But now, I mean, we just talked to so many people and it's just like, I wouldn't do it that way, but it worked for them. So who am I to say that that they were wrong? So I I become no. I've I've become very unbiased as this has gone on.
Jimbo Robinson:Jeff and I talked about that when we were out there this past Ducks season. We talked about how he had certain opinions on Ducks Unlimited, and he had one thing that it was not a grudge, but something happened to him years ago, and he didn't even know the thing. One thing happened to him years and years ago, and he felt like he got wronged in that, and he held that grudge against DU, not DU as a whole, but because it happened by a Ducks Unlimited representative, he held the grudge against DU, and he held that for a while until conversations opened between Jeff and and Andy and and some people here at DU. And now just through talks with Jeff, I mean, heck, I talk to Jeff and Andy all the time, and and I know that there's lots of people at DU that do, and we go out and see them every year. They come and support us, and it's a great, you know, relationship we have with with Jeff and Andy and the Big Honker Podcast to help promote volunteers and and to help promote the event system because they have such a listening base.
Jimbo Robinson:But but it's it's that kind of thing, I would assume, Andy, that that in the podcast world, it's you come in with, you know, that you're gonna this is how you believe, but you have to almost be open minded because then you can't enjoy the the the guests. Right? Right.
Andy Shaver:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I'm trying to think of topics earlier in the day that I mean, I still don't really understand the snow goose aspect, you know, the conservation snow goose thing. Like, it's not my jam.
Andy Shaver:So but that doesn't mean that they're wrong. Anybody that's wrong, that that is their jam. Right? Like, it's just not my thing. But I you know, you'd kinda like I made the comment earlier, I'm not a snow goose hunter.
Andy Shaver:I got all my teeth. Well, I mean, it's just it's a joke, but, like, that was an opinion that I had a long time ago. I don't fault anybody for wanting to go set out 200 dozen decoys and lay in the mud and the muck in Arkansas and try to chase snogies. It's not my jam, but that doesn't make you wrong for doing it.
Jimbo Robinson:It's not Matt's jam either.
Andy Shaver:It seems counterproductive to me on so many levels, but if that's what you like to do, then that's what you like to do. I'd rather go watch a I'd rather watch a Major League Baseball game.
Matt Harrison:That's I would too. He he stow Jimbo's throwing a jab back at me, though. You know? I I made the age joke a while ago. Now he's taking a jab at me because he invited me to we had a snow goose count a couple weeks back when we brought in some of our partners and companies that we do work with, and I asked Jimbo.
Matt Harrison:Was like, hey. Look. Or, you know, some I think I asked you, are some ankle boots okay or some rubber boots fine? Yeah, man. Yeah.
Matt Harrison:Yeah. Little did he tell me we were gonna be hunting about 24 inches deep of mud. Yes, did. About straight mud on top of how many decoys we have out? 2,000.
Jimbo Robinson:Yeah. Well, time out. It iced here. We had ice
Andy Shaver:I will
Jimbo Robinson:give him that. I will give I'll give that. I will. I'll it one time a year, and it's fun for that one time a year. Don't Hey.
Jimbo Robinson:Like you like you just said, hey.
Matt Harrison:If that's your cup of tea, some people may say, why don't y'all go standing waist deep at water
Jimbo Robinson:Freeze. Toes.
Matt Harrison:When it's 20 degrees. Hey. I enjoy it. They enjoy
Andy Shaver:chasing me. Hunting. I talk to a lot of people that don't like turkey hunting. You know
Jimbo Robinson:what mean?
Andy Shaver:I love turkey hunting. It's time out in the woods. Weather's usually pretty nice. Yeah. You know, you don't you don't get bit by a rattlesnake.
Andy Shaver:It's been a good day, but some people just don't have the patience for for turkey hunting, and I get it. Like, I was that way. Until I had that first bird that I got that I called up and he was gobbling in my face at like 15 steps, I was that way. And then, I mean, I didn't understand. I hate deer hunting.
Andy Shaver:There's nothing in this world I'd rather do less than go sit on a stupid deer stand all day and wait for this dumb animal to come out, and you get one shot a year, and it's like, could shoot a whole box of shells every morning. You know what I mean? Or I'm gonna go wait or I'm gonna go spend all my resources to shoot one one deer. Doesn't seem smart to me. Right?
Andy Shaver:Like, the return on investment's not there. I don't enjoy deer hunting. I know I'm in the minority there. I know a lot of people enjoy deer hunting. So to me, turkey hunting was like a spring version of deer hunting.
Andy Shaver:It's boring. You don't see anything. They're not talking. You're like, you know, you're second guessing everything that you've ever done. But then when I learned the art of turkey hunting, I fell in love with it.
Andy Shaver:So I'm probably not gonna be that way ever with deer hunting, but you you get the point.
Jimbo Robinson:At one point during this season, Andy wanted to be the deer guide.
Andy Shaver:I did wanna be the deer. I would make an excellent deer guide. I would make an excellent deer guide. I can look at the little I can look at the little game game cameras and all that other stuff, and I can tell you, I can't score a deer, but I can tell you that's got 10 points on it. You know what I mean?
Andy Shaver:Like, I'm not a spread kind of guy. I I'm we shot a 10 today. It's a good day. You know, it could be a one zero five. I'm not gonna tell you that part.
Andy Shaver:We shot a 10. You should be happy. The geese were just impossible in November and December. It was hot. It was 85 degrees on Christmas.
Andy Shaver:I made it a point. Every Christmas obligation that I had, I wore shorts and flip flops too just to prove a point that it was hot. And the geese were we had a lot of geese, but they were just stale. They didn't wanna play. And I was looking to be the Stanfield Outfitters deer guide.
Andy Shaver:I will drop you off. I will figure out how to I will watch a YouTube video on how to gut this thing. It's gonna be great.
VO:Stay tuned to the Ducks Unlimited Podcast sponsored by Purina Pro Plan and Bird Dog Whiskey after these messages.
Jimbo Robinson:How how do y'all select your gods If somebody wants to be a guide with the world famous Andy Shaver, how does that process look for y'all?
Andy Shaver:So we get a lot of applications every year, and we just kinda now, you know, we've got so many so many ex guides from different parts of the region, and this is a very, very small industry. I know if you are just starting out or something like that, you might feel like, no, that's that's a lie. This is a very, very small community of waterfowl hunters. So if you're a good hunter, you kind of stand out in the crowd. So we get the applications, look at the references that they have, and it's like, oh, they're from Maryland or wherever.
Andy Shaver:We had a had a guy here from Maryland. Somebody from Maryland that we knew knew him, and I like, yeah, he'll make he'll he'll work hard. But yeah. We just want somebody that's gonna work hard, can be good with clients, and we'll figure out the bird killing as we go. What's the hardest Clients is the main thing, and that's the hard part.
Andy Shaver:You're dealing with eight to 10 strangers every other day, So you gotta kinda fit in, and that kinda goes back to what we were talking about earlier about the podcast. Like, we've had guides out here that were very, very good waterfowl hunters. They could only talk about waterfowl hunting. Well, guess how much the 35 year old from Dallas, Texas knows about waterfowl hunting? Probably not a whole lot because he's coming out here on a paid hunt.
Andy Shaver:Right? So you're only gonna go so far talking about waterfowl hunting with him. So you gotta be able to talk about different things. So being able to talk to clients, you know, we have a saying out here, we might be going on day 50, but it's day one for them. So you've got to put your best foot forward every day.
Andy Shaver:You gotta be fresh. You gotta be on your game every single day. And being able to talk to clients is the hardest part of of the job. Bird killing and all that other stuff, I mean, hunting's hunting, man. But whenever whenever you have a tough hunt and then you gotta articulate to a guy that does it that this is his only waterfowl hunt for the year, you have to articulate intelligently why it didn't work that day, then you got a different story.
Matt Harrison:Yeah. How many of y'all's customers are repeating? About 85%. Oh, wow. That's awesome.
Andy Shaver:Most most guys most guys leave here booked for next year. So, yeah, our calendar stays about 75 to 80% booked on on any given year.
Jimbo Robinson:Is it because of the hunting or the cookies? Cookie.
Andy Shaver:Well Both. No. It's it's definitely the lodge. It's definitely the lodge aspect. There like like I said earlier, hunting so if you rewind the clock about three to five years ago, the the if the time to be here was November to about Christmas, two years ago, that kind of flip flopped.
Andy Shaver:November of the past two years has been very, very hard. I attribute that to Blake Poppy. Blake Poppy is a guy that we've had out here for the last three years ago and beyond, he would come after Thanksgiving, and then he kinda wrecked our December. December hunting was very tough. The past few years, he's gotten here around Halloween.
Andy Shaver:The hunting's been very tough. And then as soon as he left for Christmas this year, we started to turn it on and started putting birds on the ground. So I think next year, Blake Blake's not coming back next year. He's building a family. I think all three months next year are gonna be stellar because we're not gonna have the Blake Poppy effect.
Jimbo Robinson:Blake Poppy may be one of the funniest people I've ever run-in with.
Andy Shaver:Him and Jose, for sure.
Jimbo Robinson:Oh, snacks is great.
Andy Shaver:So we've Blake Blake's been out here nine year nine or ten years, and he got married a couple years ago. Now he's looking at starting a family. And, I mean, that's just kind of the life of a guy. I've gotten real good at, you know, I've gotten real good at kind of keeping my my guardrails up because from a young age, you know, we would have these guys come in here that I would idolize as a young kid. And like, I just want to be a waterfowl guy.
Andy Shaver:I want to be a waterfowl guy. I want to be like them. And then, I mean, about the average career of a guy is about three years. It's a it's a kid in his early twenties that loves hunting, and he wants to make money at it. You get to about 25, that guy gets married, he has a couple kids, Can't come to Texas.
Andy Shaver:So I would get really, really close to these guys, and then they would leave. Blake has been here for nine years, which is an anomaly in the guide world. But now he's gonna try to start a family, and he's gonna stay up in Nebraska this next year. And he's like a he's like a brother to me. I've I've fought many battles with him, gone to many wars, and he's he's a he's a class act.
Andy Shaver:But we were always like, we'll never we'll never find somebody as funny as Blake Poppy. And then Jose Nuneo showed up. And I tell you what, he he's a close second. Blake's always gonna be Blake, but I love some I love me some snacks.
Jimbo Robinson:Jose is
Andy Shaver:also not look like a waterfowler. He does not look like a waterfowler guy. I miss Joe I miss I misread that book cover the first time I saw him. A larger gentleman. He's a larger gentleman, and came up, introduced himself at the squad at the squad fest a couple years ago.
Andy Shaver:Said, hey. He came up to me first. I I had never met him before. Jeff was sitting in the back like he always does because, you know, Jeff can't be standing in front where it's easy for him to talk to people. You gotta you gotta call on Jeff at these shows.
Andy Shaver:So he comes up and he's like, hey. I'm Jose. I'm working for y'all this year. And I was like, Jeff, your latest hire's here. Because we had had a string of guides that, you know, didn't work out for whatever reason.
Andy Shaver:I was like, Jose is gonna be another one of Jess hires. Probably had a good story. Pulled on Jeff's heartstrings, and kid ain't gonna last. But I tell you what, man. He he fell into our family and just he just fell right in place like he'd been here forever.
Andy Shaver:And I slow mornings, he's great because he can I don't know? I've kinda I kinda have a reputation of being being like hunting with a middle school principal. I just kinda do my deal, and that's how we're gonna do it. But Jose and Blake are good because they can kinda they can give one liners to the clients that aren't offensive. But whenever I say it for whatever reason, you know, I guess I guess I guess it's my presentation, but they can kinda soften me up a little bit and make me a little bit better in front of clients than I actually am.
Jimbo Robinson:Did you do the full body spread anymore this year?
Andy Shaver:Not 36. Dang.
Jimbo Robinson:No. It was thirty
Andy Shaver:six. No. Thirty seven. Not thirty seven. We did do full bodies again, but bigger, bigger, and better, bigger, and better.
Andy Shaver:We finally figured it out.
Jimbo Robinson:It was hot out there when we were there.
Andy Shaver:It was. I wear a t shirt every day.
Jimbo Robinson:Yeah. And, like, it was the writing was on the wall. The the nothing was changing. Very little wind. I told Andy, said, hey.
Jimbo Robinson:Why don't we just go with 37 full whites? And, like, everybody laughed. And, from my perspective, I thought I was just gonna be some industry guys, you know, would've been but they were actually clients with us, and they were like, oh, this is kinda cool. You know? Put out, you know, a thousand decoys or whatever they normally put out, and we killed as many, I think, as anybody else.
Jimbo Robinson:It wasn't great. Then we killed seven. I don't remember what the exact number was.
Andy Shaver:But we didn't put out 50 dozen decoys.
Jimbo Robinson:Did not put 50 dozen decoys out.
Andy Shaver:So, I mean, who won
Jimbo Robinson:that day? But they were definitely gonna blame me if it was a complete loss.
Andy Shaver:A 100%. Yeah.
Jimbo Robinson:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Listen. I
Andy Shaver:Anytime a guide can, like, put the attention somewhere else as to why things don't work out, take that off. Take that route. If you're a young guide coming up and you've got an if you've got an easy out, take that out. And Jimbo's from Ducks Unlimited. He said we need 37.
Andy Shaver:So let's run 37 decoys. And if it doesn't work, it's the guy from the it's the guy from DU who says
Jimbo Robinson:That's exactly the that's exactly what it sounded like the entire setup. This
Andy Shaver:is Jimbo's deal.
Jimbo Robinson:Yep. It was fun.
Andy Shaver:This is the Ducks Unlimited spread.
Jimbo Robinson:Was fun.
Andy Shaver:Anyway, this is how they this is how they do things with Ducks Unlimited.
Jimbo Robinson:Oh, man. Small but powerful.
Andy Shaver:Yeah. Small but mighty.
Jimbo Robinson:Mighty.
Andy Shaver:Small but mighty. I like it, though. I like being able to throw a curveball every once in a while because I was we were talking about this. I can't remember when, but, like, as a guide, I don't have the luxury of doing something totally off the ball in case it doesn't work. Like, if I came at like, for me to go to a client and be like, hey, I know you've hunted a lot.
Andy Shaver:I know you've seen the YouTube videos. You gotta set out this many decoys. I wanna put out six tomorrow, and I wanna hide in this manner. If if if the client doesn't have a good relationship with you or if it's a new client and that doesn't work, you're just gonna look you're just gonna come across as lazy. So, like, you gotta have a good relationship to be able to to do something totally off the wall.
Andy Shaver:Most of the time, you know, if it's a new group, I try to play everything safe. If anything, I'm gonna add to my spread. I'm gonna make it bigger, take up more real estate in the field, but being able to kinda and I think a lot of times being able to peel back and run something smaller is the curveball that you need out here. It's just, can you get the client on board with it if it doesn't work? That's the tricky part.
Jimbo Robinson:And y'all are hunting specs. Right? Specs, small Mostly. Yeah.
Andy Shaver:Mostly. It's mostly specs. Whenever I grew up, we had quarter million lessors here every year. So whenever I learned how to goose hunt, I grew up, I didn't even know how to blow a specklebelly call until about six years ago.
Jimbo Robinson:I was just about to ask, how has the hunting changed where you all are, you know, in the past ten, fifteen years?
Andy Shaver:So I got married in 2011, so that was my first year back. November, we went through a really, really bad drought. We had a phenomenal year that year. Wore the Lessers out. And then we had a really bad drought, and for whatever reason, the lesser Canada goose in '12 decided, hey.
Andy Shaver:I'm gonna stop in Southwest Oklahoma and Texas Panhandle. We were fortunate that the speckle bellies started to backfill the Canadas that we were losing. So '12 02/1213, we had specks here, not like we have now, but there were enough specs that we could do some hunting. We also started hunting in Southwest Oklahoma about two hours north of here, and that kinda goes back to what I was saying. Like, I was I was primarily in Oklahoma, got in waterfowl hunts up there.
Andy Shaver:So I had a had a new kid. Didn't get to see him as often. But so we were up there, and then Oklahoma kinda turned into the rat race that it that it is now. Birds weren't getting a rest at any field. There was tons of do it yourselfers and new guides popping up on every corner in Southwest Oklahoma.
Andy Shaver:And then we were up there, I think, three or four years. And during that time away, we were still running hunts down here. We were running one or two groups a day. But the speckle bellies, the speckle belly population just increased every single year. And then finally, whenever we figured that Oklahoma was the juice wasn't worth the squeeze anymore because there was just too much pressure, we we pretty well just turned everything into a specklebelly operation.
Andy Shaver:So I had to learn on the fly.
Jimbo Robinson:That's that's crazy because, you know, people, they left. It's almost like they split then. Right? Because they left Louisiana and they came to Arkansas, and then you picked them up in Texas.
Andy Shaver:Yeah. Like, whenever I was a kid, we would have our our big portion, and up until about Thanksgiving was all specklebellies. We would shoot a lot of specklebellies, and then for whatever reason, that Thanksgiving timeline, there'd be like a big cold front or whatever. But usually around the Thanksgiving time, everything would flip flop. We'd go from having a bunch of specks to a bunch of Canadas, and now we're just hunting Canadas.
Andy Shaver:And then I remember that twelve years just like, where have the Canadas gone? And back in those days, you could only shoot one specklebelly per man per day. And then we got two, and then now we're at five per day. But, yeah, it was just like, what are we gonna do? You can only shoot one bird.
Andy Shaver:And so we started doing Southwest Oklahoma. And but, yeah, I mean, it would just flip flop basically around Thanksgiving time. And now we don't see very many Lessers. I still love them. They're dumb.
Andy Shaver:I didn't realize how easy it was to to shoot a Lesser Canada goose until I started shooting speckle bellies. I mean, pretty basic. Just set out a decoy spread, make a lot of racket, do some flagging. They're gonna be in big bunches. They're gonna be racing each other to get to the bottom.
Andy Shaver:They're gonna be racing each other to get to the feed. So I realized how easy it was to shoot a lesser Canada goose, and I kinda thought that I was the goose god back in the heyday. I thought everything stopped and ended with me, and I was like, nope. It was just a dumb bird.
Jimbo Robinson:What's your favorite story from your time as a god? Oh, boy. Outside of your kids because Jamison and Reese, I know you've got some incredible memories with them.
Andy Shaver:Oh, my mind didn't even go to them. No. Man, I've been I I don't know. Like, to me, a good hunt isn't really about, you know, the piles or anything like that. It's just, you know, there's so many hunts that are with Blake and with snacks where we just we just laugh the whole time.
Andy Shaver:One of my favorite memories don't I know. It's a funny story. I don't know that it's a memory. I don't know if it's my favorite memory, but so a long time ago, we used to have flatbed trailers that would haul the decoy spread out. We just throw everything on a flatbed.
Andy Shaver:Well, like, the leaf spring or whatever broke in that on the trailer. So the wheel well was riding on top of the tire as it spun. Well, I was hunting with Tony, and he's kind of a redneck engineer. He's Jeff's brother, my uncle. So he was like, I think if we lift the side of this trailer up, we can shove a a shovel into the gap, and it'll at least keep the wheel well off of the tire.
Andy Shaver:We can get back to lodge. I can fix it from there. Well, okay. Cool. Well, the group that we had that day, it was like four, like, you watch them walk around the goose bread and that's kind of confused short steps, a lot of Velcro on their shoes.
Andy Shaver:So we're all like, okay. We're gonna lift we're gonna lift the trailer We're all gonna we're all gonna spread out along this flatbed trailer. We're gonna lift the trailer up. We're shove the shovel in there. We'll be on our way.
Andy Shaver:So Tony crawls into position underneath the trailer. I take my position on the side of the trailer, and I'm gonna lift it up. I got a guy next to me. I got a guy on either side of me, you know, a couple feet couple feet away with this trailer up. So Tony's like, alright.
Andy Shaver:On three. So we count, and it's like one, two. And then as we get to three, I just feel these cold, clammy man hands go over mine. And I look down at my feet, and on either side, I on my left side, there's a white shoe with Velcro, and on my right side, there's another white shoe with Velcro. And I'm like in the squat, I'm in a vulnerable position here.
Andy Shaver:I'm like squatted down. You know what I'm saying? And I got this I got these cold clammy man hands that just have a like a bare grip on me. And I'm like squatting and pulling and pushing and like grinding and like I feel them behind me and I can feel his cold breath on my shoulder and and then I lifting with all I got and I'm grunting a little bit and struggling and moaning and I don't know what he's doing behind me. And then I hear Tony underneath the trailer and he's like, alright, I got it.
Andy Shaver:So I like go to let go of the trailer. Well, the the cold clammy manhands, they just they keep a hold. Like, they're not going anywhere. So I look back and like, I'm like, he said he's got it. You can let go now.
Andy Shaver:He was back there for the long haul, man. So that's a story that sticks out in my mind that but as far as hunting stories, I mean, I I don't know. Those are kinda boring. What? So never forget it.
Andy Shaver:Velcro shoes on either side of me. I knew he had me then.
Jimbo Robinson:No issues I'm talking about. Oh, yeah. The same people that eat Piccadilly every afternoon at 04:00. Andy, what's some what are some bloopers that almost every guide, new guide, old guide, happens every year?
Andy Shaver:Forgetting stuff on the trailer. So that is one thing I'm a stickler on. I like to get my trailer done the night before. A lot of the young guides like to go down there. We roll out at 05:00 every morning.
Andy Shaver:Breakfast is at 04:15. We roll at five. A lot of guys like to go down there about 04:30 and get their trailer ready. Well, guess what? You're gonna forget stuff.
Andy Shaver:So young guides are notorious for not having everything that they need. A lot of times, we'll hunt out of a frames, and to kinda kill the hard line of an a frame, we'll we'll brush it in with tumbleweeds. So we had a young guide, first year guide, Mikey Silberano. I'm not gonna use your name, but I sent him on tumbleweed patrol. I'm like, hey, man.
Andy Shaver:Go get a truckload of tumbleweeds. We need to hide these a frames. Got it. I'm the man for the job. Cool.
Andy Shaver:He's gone all morning. Like, I I think I'd I think at this point, we got the a frame set up. We maybe had a bag of decoys set out. We had parked the trucks before we ever saw Mikey Soberano. Oh, I'm not gonna mention your name, Mikey.
Andy Shaver:Sorry. When Mikey Soberano finally did show back up, like, we were already parking. Like, he missed everything. And he shows up to the to the field, and I'm like, where's your tumbleweeds? Well, I can only find this one.
Andy Shaver:Why don't you come back? Like, why are you here? What what good is one tumbleweed gonna do us? So it's just attention to detail. I should have specified, I guess.
Andy Shaver:I just told him go get tumbleweeds. I think he had one blowout, so that was plural. Like, at one point, he had two, so he had tumbleweeds. Like, from a grammatical sense of it, like, he had two, plural. One blew out.
Andy Shaver:If he got back to us, it was one. Well, it's like, get a truck bed full next time. Don't go get tumbleweeds. Fill your truck bed up and then come back. But just everything
Jimbo Robinson:Oh, man. Oh, That's hilarious.
Andy Shaver:But I can't I my first day my first day this year, I didn't blow my I didn't blow my goose calls at all during the off season. I'm very proud to say that. And opening morning gets here, and I go to pick up my Spuckerbelly call and make it make it sound. There were no guts in it. So I can't brag on the young kids too much because my call had no guts in it on opening day, so I had to borrow one from snacks.
Andy Shaver:We don't make mistakes.
Jimbo Robinson:Oh, yeah. Well, as we wrap up, Andy, what is what does it look like for y'all this summer? What what's y'all's plans for this summer?
Andy Shaver:A lot of travel. So we go we every year at the end of hunting season in celebration of surviving another one, we go to Mexico. So we are gonna try to go avoid getting kidnapped. Next week. We'll be in Mexico on the East Side, not where we're going to the stable cartel side of Mexico, not the, you know, the side where everything's blowing up.
Andy Shaver:Yeah. So we'll be in Isla Mujeres for a week with wives and all that good stuff. So we'll be there. Got turkey season, kid baseball in April, then got another trip in May, and then that's about it until till show season starts. We'll be be at all the major shows and just cranking out podcast, and hopefully, I can keep doing jiu jitsu as much as I do.
Andy Shaver:That's kinda taken it's kinda taken a big part in my life. I really enjoy that. So more podcasts, more travel.
Jimbo Robinson:Yep. If the listeners wanna find your podcast, where can they find it?
Andy Shaver:We're on every major podcast platform out there. Y'all on YouTube? Apple, Spotify, YouTube. We've got social media channels everywhere. I'm gonna get back into making clips of all that fun stuff this off season.
Andy Shaver:So any major social media platform you can find us, any podcast platform, we should be on it.
Jimbo Robinson:We'll have a
Matt Harrison:TV show
Andy Shaver:too. Switch. Yeah. We're on YouTube also. Just go to the Big Honker Podcast, and we're there.
Andy Shaver:We've also got a little hunting series that's on there, so we got it all.
Jimbo Robinson:If people want to book a hunt with y'all, how can they get in touch with they get in touch with you? What? Do they get in touch with you?
Andy Shaver:No. Don't get in touch with me. God, no. Don't call me. (940) 658-3172 is the office number.
Andy Shaver:Jeff is going to answer, you know, that's the funny joke around social media. As you see all these outfitters after hunting season, they get to, like, the February, and they all like to make a post that books are open. I don't know what it is, but everybody posts books are open. Well, guess what? Our books never close.
Andy Shaver:So if you wanna book a hunt for twenty thirty, (940) 658-3172. Our books are always open.
Jimbo Robinson:Awesome, Andy. Well, we really appreciate you taking the time to come on to another episode of the Ducks Unlimited Podcast. We wanna thank all of our listeners, all of our volunteers out there. We wanna thank all of our supporters. Follow us along on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, wherever you get your social media from.
Jimbo Robinson:Follow Ducks Unlimited. Follow The Big Honker Podcast. We thank you for joining us for another episode of the Ducks Unlimited Podcast. See you on the other side. Watch out for geese.
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