Ducks Unlimited Podcast

Jerad Henson: Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Ducks Unlimited podcast. I'm Dr. Jared Henson. I'm going to be your host today. I'm joined in studio by Dr. Mike Brasher, co-host. I do, Jared. Doing great. Good to see you. Doing great. We're closing in on the end of duck season here and coming to a screaming end of duck season for the Southern states with some cold weather and stuff like that. And we've been talking a lot about that cold front and how it's pushing ducks and people to some moving water and so we're going to talk a little bit today about some stories from hunting rivers and things like that throughout the south and mid-south and when we were talking about it Came to mind real quick that we got a good buddy out there, Mr. Jim Ronquist, who probably has a lot of great stories about running the river. And so we've got Jim online with us today. He looks like he's had a great morning, at least got out there after him. So Jim, thanks for joining us.

Jim Ronquest: Hey man, as always, it's always a pleasure to be a part of the DU Podcast.

Jerad Henson: So we've been talking, like I said, about kind of that, the run river and those stories. And, you know, one of the things that came real quick to mind is all the hazards that just lead to some crazy stories and things like that. And whether it's fluctuating water, debris coming down river. Or if you're in Arkansas or something like that or in Mississippi, you're running river with trees and current and that always gets tricky. But before we get going on stories, I think Mike wanted to mention something real quick before we even get into this.

Mike Brasher: Yeah, this is it's a bit of an unfortunate sort of point that we that we're going to make here. It's relevant to the discussion that we're gonna have on January 10th, earlier this year, 2025. A young man out of Russellville, Arkansas, Ben Wharton, was involved in a pretty severe boating accident led to a pretty. pretty concerning brain injury and we want to take a moment just to pass along our thoughts and prayers and well wishes to Ben, his family, everyone involved in that situation. It would have been a huge oversight on our part if we failed to To think about that situation, that family, and the consequences that can befall some of these sort of situations. And so Jimbo, being with Drake Waterfowl, you being over there in Arkansas, also wanted to give you an opportunity to say a few words to Ben Wharton and his family in this situation.

Jim Ronquest: You bet. Our thoughts and prayers are with Ben and his family today. I can only imagine what they're going through. Like a lot of other businesses in the outdoor space, we've all donated a lot of product to the fundraising efforts to try to help them get Ben through this deal. I understand it's still pretty touch and go as of today. know that all of us have said prayers for him. We've kept him in our thoughts. It's made for lots of conversation. There's lots of people trying to help him out from far away, offering prayers and good thoughts to being in his family.

Mike Brasher: Thank you, Jimbo. One of the things I'll point out is there is a Facebook page, believe it or Facebook group entitled Ben's Army. Encourage our listeners to go check that out. We are recording this on January 16th, just sort of a time for a timestamp relative to this discussion. And absolutely, Jimbo, our thoughts, prayers go to Ben, his entire family. and friends and everyone around him. Yeah, that's tough.

Jim Ronquest: It's a sad deal. You know, you just there's a lot of things can happen out there that quick and you can go from everything okay to everything not being okay in a split second. So Something to definitely keep in mind, for sure.

Jerad Henson: For sure. So, man, after kind of just laying that out, that does definitely put kind of this in place, right?

Mike Brasher: It sure does, yeah.

Jerad Henson: So we're going to talk about some stories, some crazy stories and things like that. This isn't just necessarily for entertainment, right? There's some precautions out there, and that was one of the reasons we wanted to bring Jim on, is he's got a lot of experience on this, on how to be prepared and to Keep yourself as safe as possible out there. If you're running big rivers, whether it's the Mississippi, the white or the black in Arkansas, the Missouri, or even the Illinois River up in You know, up north, all those are going to have some similar things with fluctuating water levels, debris. If you get up further north, you're going to get ice issues. And if you get on the big rivers, you got jetties. All that can always create some big, big issues. But Jim, can you give us a little background on kind of your experience running a river? You said you've been behind a boat.

Jim Ronquest: Yeah, I was fortunate. Yeah, I was fortunate to grow up in a home that was very outdoorsy oriented, hunting, fishing, bird dogs, duck dogs, bass boats, John boats. I was just fortunate to grow up around a lot of that and had parents that had the foresight that enjoyed it. They were outdoors people for sure. And I remember, I'm going to come to something that's kind of comical in a way, but also sad. At the time, we were living in far western Kentucky, in Kentucky Lake, Barkley Lake, all that kind of stuff. We was on the water all the time. And my mother thought it was smart for me. She signed me up for the Coast Guard, what did they call it back in the day? I'm gonna call it the wrong thing. The Coast Guard Power Squadron School or something, where they teach you ways of the water and, you know, things that you, you know, what side of the buoy you go on if you're on a navigable stream and all that. Now, I don't remember a lot of that, I'll be honest with you, the main parts. But what's funny about that, as much time as I have spent in a boat, on the water, in the water, to a point, I can't hardly swim a lick. It could be in the summertime, 100 degrees in the swimming pool, and I might be able to swim all the way across it to get a cold beer, but it'd be an effort. So that's something I should do. But the point of that is, and I tell myself this, it's real easy to take things for granted because you've done it so much you get overly comfortable with it. And for that example, I have been bad about jumping the boat at 4 o'clock in the morning and running up White River and not have a kill switch on or a life jacket. So, I've got a good friend that lives in North Louisiana. His name is Michael Thomas. He's the same way. He grew up on the rivers, on the Ouachita River, hunting, fishing, trout lining, running nets, you know. And we were turkey hunting in the springtime, but the Ouachita River was big, and of course, he's a duck hunter, and he wanted to go show me his bottoms, and, you know, take a ride on the Ouachita. And we put the boat in off the ditch, and he stood there, and Michael's a big old boy, and he stood there, he stuck his arm out, had his hand down, and had a life jacket in his hand. And I said, hey, man, we're just riding in the backwater. We should be fine. He never said a word. He just kept looking down. And I said, man, I'm surely sure I'm all right. And he finally looked up. He said, Jimbo, I've lost two uncles to this river because they didn't have a life jacket on. And that sunk home with me. And since then, I try to make an effort to put a life jacket on. I don't always remember to grab it or in a hurry doing something. But you talk to anybody that does water rescue work and they'll tell you the life jacket. That's why they call it a life jacket, you know. And I'm preaching to the choir here a little bit for all you folks that are listening and rowing above me. Well, I'm trying to be better, for sure. Because so much can happen, you know. I had run the river. I was running one night. A guy named Blake Fisher and I, we was coming down the river. um going duck hunting going in the woods at four o'clock and whatnot we's going it's real foggy so i couldn't see and had my red and green light on but any other bright lights you couldn't see so we was easy i wasn't on staff i just easing i seen something white in front of me what the heck is that So I just kind of eased up there to it. It was a great big old log and stump that had snow on top of it. The white I was seeing was the snow. So had I been running wide open down there, not paying attention, looking up at the stars, that could have been a deal. I can't tell you how many close calls I've had.

Jerad Henson: I've seen that, almost that exact same thing. Just lucky for me, it wasn't foggy. We took a bend in the river, come around that bend, and we cut the bend a little short, kind of cutting a point, and came around it. And we're doing, we're on plane and we're getting to where we're wanting to be. And I mean, 150 yards right in front of the boat is that big root ball right there. And if anyone had been paying attention, you're moving quick and we had time to react, but that'll startle you.

Jim Ronquest: Yeah, it will. I worked a summer on a work barge on a lock and dam project on the Mississippi River and I was a deckhand and we would be running barges from one end of the job to the other end of the job and I'd be tying stuff off and moving and going and jumping from barge to barge. and they give us these work life jackets the bright orange ones you know y'all know what i'm talking about they were hot in the summertime they'd stick to you so you'd always leave them unbuckled you know to get some air and no boat captain uh he'd holler at you and he not gonna use all the adjectives he would use about make sure that life jacket was buckled and i spent an evening with him in the wheelhouse moving back and forth and it was raining and he was talking about when he was long line in the river, you know, running to New Orleans and back to St. Louis and up to Illinois and all the things he did and talking about various things. He'd be running down the river on a high water year and, you know, he's running a barge with, you know, 18-ton barges tied onto him and he says, you know, you all of a sudden see some water boil and here come one of those big root balls. He's blowing up out of the river. I mean, we was talking about duck hunting. He said, man, you wouldn't get me to cross this river in one of them duck boats y'all ride in. We think we're in a big boat. So I kind of put all that in perspective. At the same time, I'm going to go. I'm not going to let it keep me from going. But like this old boat captain said, that river does not suffer any fools. It demands respect, and it does.

Mike Brasher: You know, there's a lot of folks down in Louisiana could tell similar stories about the mouth of the Mississippi River. There's a lot of people who tell stories about getting stranded or running up on a shoal and just being there for hours on end. There's a lot of different hazards that people have to be aware of and this kind of stuff. But people, duck hunters as a group are probably I mean, from a sort of recreational standpoint, probably in one of the higher risk categories because we're out there in the middle of the night and yet risk tolerant in the dark and trying to beat the other person there in some cases.

Jerad Henson: We don't know how that goes. When you're talking about down there, I was going to say crazy thing there, or if you're running the Mississippi or Arkansas or Missouri where you've got barge traffic. Or down in the mouth of Mississippi, you've got tanker traffic.

Jim Ronquest: Yes.

Jerad Henson: Feet of water.

Jim Ronquest: Yes. Oh, it's the first time I was inside Louisiana hunting and we was crossing the shipping canal and we're in a 16 foot duck boat with a 40 horse on it. We're crossing the International Shipping Canal and here's a tanker and I'm like, well that's different. You know, it's pretty interesting to your point there. Here's something that also I've learned to do. Now while I'm bad about going off by myself, If there's a group of folks going, take two boats. If there's four of us going and you got a boat and I got a boat, you, Mike, and your boat, me and my buddy in my boat, I know it's taking up more room at the boat landing, but the safety factor there more than doubles. If the boat goes bad, something happens, you have another boat there to get somebody out, or if you get a boat stuck. Here's another example. We've got a young man here that's working with us at Drake, at the Drake camp. He's videoing, he's taking pictures. Sad deal, another, hate to be negative, lost a best friend from high school. They were duck hunting on Lake Eufaula. And I guess the boat they had, they was setting decoys, boat floated off. And he thought he could swim to it and get the boat. I mean, had you had two boats and one of them tied off, it would have been a no-brainer. Or in that situation, don't try to be the tough guy. Wait it out. Hopefully, you got enough sail service so you can at least get somebody texted, another buddy, a mom or dad or somebody that can come get you. And you can stay high and dry. You may wait a minute, but I'd rather wait a little while than the alternative.

Jerad Henson: Well, I've got an area that I hunt, and that's really important as being… With today's technology, Being able to be connected is important, especially if you're out there in the middle of nowhere. I mean, it's not uncommon for me to make a 10-mile boat ride in the middle of nowhere where I'm not going to have cell service. I've gotten to where I carry an inReach.

Jim Ronquest: That's probably a good point.

Jerad Henson: And I've got the little simple one. It's a messenger. It just sends text. But I can send a text if I need to. The plan is not terribly expensive for the security it provides, but if something happens, I can send a message out.

Jim Ronquest: You can reach out for help, and that's important. There's other things you can do too. I try to keep life jackets. When I'm really in the bottoms all the time, There's a few certain tools I like to keep in the boat. A cable, come along, get you out of a bind. One of them space safety blankets, something that somebody goes in, gets wet, you wrap up in that, stay warm. Smart idea to get you a dry bag, keep a dry set of clothes in there. Just little things like that can be the difference between getting home and not.

Jerad Henson: A basic set of tools to work on your motor, whether it's a fouled spark plug and a little bit of, you know, a file or a little sandpaper to touch that up or just a regular one.

Jim Ronquest: I keep all that. I keep basic tools, extra fuses, battery clamps. Some sort of a penetrating oil, like a WD-40 or something to that effect. A few points on my clean out spark plug. Just the basic tools that can get things done. You can get a lot done with a crescent wrench, a pair of channel locks, a couple of screwdrivers. You can get a lot done if you have to.

Jerad Henson: And if you're going to run those big water and make those big runs and be that far away from stuff, you need to be somewhat comfortable with your motor. I'm not saying you need to be able to take it completely apart and put it back together, but you need to be able to troubleshoot.

Jim Ronquest: You need to have some basic mechanical ability, and that's pretty easy to find. Your local shop will probably teach you something. Read a book, read a manual, kind of learn a few things, a few basics about it. Fire, fuel, and spark is what will make one run. So once you learn about where those things come from, you can at least maybe identify the problem and maybe go from there.

Jerad Henson: I don't know how many times I've patched a fuel line back and forth going up and down.

Jim Ronquest: I had a pretty good wreck a couple years ago. My nephew was in the boat with me. What saved him from flying out of the boat was his head hitting a tree. So what we had done, and I've had several of these kind of things, and it happens. I just come running through a logging road, had good water conditions, It didn't hit nothing. I seen a light up where I was going. I said, well, there's somebody there. I'm going to turn around and go back. So I turned around and get out of the way. And it's still plenty of time before shooting time. And I'm not much into racing, but I was going to get on step, get across the ridge, and get out of his way. Well, I turned the boat around, hit the gas. About time the front of the boat leveled out. Wham! Kicked the motor up. There was a log that floated in from my wheel wash when I went in there, and it kicked my motor up, and I cut out in the woods, and in front of the boat hit a tree, and it peeled it up. I can find the picture. I mean, it peeled her back pretty good, and sent him out, and his head hit the tree. Luckily, he's pretty hard-headed, and he was okay, but it just got a pot mod out of the deal. But that being said, that's just, I had just run through there and didn't hit a thing. So you get comfortable, let's say you're running somewhere in the wide or the cash or the black or wherever you're used to running, and you're running a certain channel every day or a certain part of the river, and man I didn't hit nothing there yesterday, it was clear yesterday, it was clear the day before that, rivers come up or down or moved a little bit, I'm going to be fine. And you make that turn and you hit the gas and all of a sudden here's a floater that's just barely under the water that you can't see. Wasn't there yesterday, but it's there now and now you got a bind. Now you're in a bind. So you cannot pay enough attention.

Jerad Henson: Yeah.

Mike Brasher: So a question here as we think about folks that may be listening to us and And maybe they're new hunters, maybe they're wanting to get into this, maybe they have a place that requires them to get on the river or some other big body of water to access it. There are folks that have been doing this for a long time and that will understand, kind of relate to some of the stories you're talking about there. But for somebody that's just kind of getting into this, let's say they're going to make a decision to buy a boat, that's probably a whole other discussion on what kind of boat you want to buy, right? But this is probably a pretty obvious answer. But Jimbo, what do you tell somebody in order to develop the skills? What's the steps for developing the skills to get comfortable in doing these types of things?

Jim Ronquest: Man, my guess would be if you don't have any experience running a boat, being on moving water, being on any kind of water, is go get with somebody who's pretty experienced. There's what they call it the Cajun Navy. There's a lot of pretty solid boat hands around the country that will be happy to teach you a few things. Go fishing with them. Go boat riding with them. Offer to buy them some gas or take them out to eat. Just go learn how to get around. Don't have to go show nobody your secrets. Just say, hey, man, here's the basics of a boat motor. Here's things you need to learn about with how you adjust the motor height, the tilt, or the trim if it has power trim on it. And just go ask to learn. Of course, nowadays with Google and YouTube and all that, good gosh, you can get more information than you can probably soak up, you know, just getting on there. But nothing beats hands-on. along with somebody with experience. You know somebody who knows and can say no that's not how you do that or when you come into this turn or point you maybe you swing wide or watch that current or look how that current may change ahead of you be learning to watch that if you see set current breaking around something that's probably that may be a stick or the end of a treetop that's out there in that current that's moving causing that water to do different. Learn to read what that water's doing and where it's going and that'll help you a lot from in the future what you hit or may not hit. If it's stagnant still water just be watching as you even see the boat pushing water what it may reveal. Just always be watching how water moves and it'll tell you if something's there or not.

Jerad Henson: And if it's your first time to run an area or something like that, go slow and don't do it at 4 a.m. for the first time. I mean, ease into it for sure. Yeah.

Mike Brasher: I've actually been in some situations where I've been asked to drive a boat. I have a lot of experience driving boats of different types. Grew up with John boats, ski boats, fishing boats of all sorts. So I have plenty of experience with that. I'm comfortable with it. It is a different thing whenever you're asked to drive a boat that you have never driven before in the dark in a body of water that you are not familiar with. And so what I. So go slow, for sure, is a strong piece of advice if you have the opportunity to do so, which I think I've done a couple of times. Get out there the afternoon before when you're not kind of under the pressure, because everybody knows whenever you first get out there… If it's legal. Well, if it's legal. In some areas. Some areas it's not. If it's legal. If it's legal. I was thinking about a different area.

Jerad Henson: But I'm saying for a duck hunter, if you're in certain refuge bodies or WMAs in certain states, you're not supposed to be out there in the afternoon.

Mike Brasher: That's right. That's correct. But get some experience with it at a time when you're not in a rush to get to the spot, when it's light outside, just to get a feel for how that boat handles, how that motor handles, what its peculiarities might be.

Jerad Henson: Absolutely. And if you've got a camp or something like that that you're going to or somewhere you're going to be running out of regularly, go in the spring. When there's a little water up, weather's a little nicer, that's a great time to putt around the woods.

Jim Ronquest: That's another good point. A little different direction, but I do that a lot. After duck season, if we get a big water, I'll go recheck all my places that I've hunted in the past that I can get to and see what things look like, see what happens, see what trees have fell down, what trees have died. um that's another one kind of goes back into in the bottomland hardwood management a little bit you see a lot of trees and river bottoms from all these years and years of high spring and early summer water that's hurting some hurting some of our red oaks killing trees be looking up too i've been uh i wasn't knocked out but i was scouting one afternoon when you can scout this area and i was by myself I did have my kill switch on, and I was easing around, I was looking, and I hit a tree. I'm just idling, but it hit pretty hard, and a pretty good-sized limb hit me in the back of the head and knocked me down in the bottom of the boat. And we made a couple circles there before I got my wits together to get up and, you know, sit down and rub my head and make sure I was okay. But look up, look down, look everywhere.

Jerad Henson: Yeah, and especially in that current when you're, even if you're just putting around that current, the rear end of the boat will slide on you. That's something that I've had lucky enough that I've been hit in the head with anything, but I've had them hit in the boat with me.

Jim Ronquest: Yes, absolutely. And sometimes you don't know it. Here's another one, too. If you're downstreaming, meaning if you're going downstream in a tight slew or through some woods, a bunch of overcup or something, you've got to be going faster than the water to have any control.

Mike Brasher: You were telling the story about this just the other day, weren't you, where a pretty significant fall, rate of fall?

Jim Ronquest: Oh, yeah. Yeah, you've got to really have control. You've got to be going faster than the water is if you're going downstream. Upstream is a different story. But be watching what's in front of you because a lot of times you'll use those trees to steer your boat. You know, you'll kind of push over to get pushed off that way, but you want to make sure what's up there is good.

Jerad Henson: Yeah, what he was talking about is when you're running the main channel itself, and then you're going to shoot into the backwater. That's the sketchiest thing I've ever done in a boat, is catch the front end of that rise on a river, and I'm going to take a shoot. And I took one of them one day, and there was 18 inches to two foot of fall down this shoot.

Mike Brasher: And you can't necessarily stop, right? In trees. That's right.

Jim Ronquest: Okay, I've got it. I wonder if it's the same place I'm fixing to talk about.

Mike Brasher: You compare notes afterwards, right?

Jerad Henson: I've done it a couple times. One of them you would definitely know, but one of them you had to go around log jam to make this shoot and go in and we did it one day and I took the shoot in and we were in two boats. We did it right because we're a long ways from the ramp. And my buddies took 15 minutes to come to the shoot behind us, and they ended up yelling to see if we were okay, because they said we disappeared. Wow. Because of the drop, because of where they were at out waiting on us, trying to stage to make a shot in there. Easy, because you can pick your way up through there and kind of…

Jim Ronquest: Yeah, if you're going upstream, this one particular place is, you know, it's full stream of river water going in a pretty tight slough. And when you're coming out of it, you can dang sure tell you're going uphill. You know, you can see you're going uphill. We got in there, and once you start in it, that river's pushing you hard. Mm-hmm, just exactly what you saw about here. We had issue one morning going in And the particular boat I was running didn't have a breakaway plate on it just tire trim And I keep the moat and that captain is pretty deep. So I keep the motor down pretty good And a lot we've got crossed up in there and the motor hit it and it sucked So now the boat's held, so now all that current's pushing against the back of the boat, the transom, not the bow that'll lift up underneath it. And all the people in there, you know, we was five people in the boat, what the plate said, we were fine there. But I had a couple guys in the back keeping the boat level for running. Now I'm like, If water comes over the back of this boat, we're going to be done.

Mike Brasher: It's done.

Jim Ronquest: We're going to go from bad to worse. So just luckily, I kept my head and said, all right, guys, I need to help y'all ease forward here a little bit. And I raised the motor up. We got enough weight in the front, and I can get my foot down, push up off a log, and we made it. But that could have been a bad thing.

Jerad Henson: And it has been in the past. I think that was a similar story kind of to what happened in Arkansas. I don't know. 10, 15 years ago, it was a well-known boating accident on the White River Refuge that I think it was one of the last years they allowed guiding in there.

Jim Ronquest: Was it, did it include a cab, cab boat?

Jerad Henson: Yep, I think they took a corner or something like that and took water over the back end and some guys got trapped in the cab and a couple guys from George's Parish, so.

Jim Ronquest: Bad deal. Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, here's the deal. I don't want to keep people from it either. Let's not sound all negative. And if you're going to go there, you're going to die. Don't do it. Just learn to respect the water. Use equipment capable of where you're going. Don't try to run the Mississippi River in a 1436 with a 99 on it and four guys in it and two dogs, you know. Use proper equipment for where you're going. Keep your head on. Go learn all you can about proper maintenance and proper operation of a boat motor rig. Try not to do anything stupid and you'll have a great time and you'll get to enjoy and see things that a lot of folks don't get to do. go to a flooded field somewhere. Being on the rivers is pretty cool, and hence all the overcrowding issues. I mean, everybody wants to come see the woods. Well, they want to do it because one, it's fun, and two, it looks cool, and it's very pretty to look at. So, you know, that's a whole other rabbit hole we could go down right there for sure. But if you just take the time and learn about it and have fun, respect it, enjoy it for what it is, you'll have some good times.

Jerad Henson: One of the things we wanted to kind of jump into now is a little bit about how to be more prepared and also a little bit more geographically inclusive, I guess. And Jim had some really cool stories and mentioned about some places up north and out west. And Jim, can you tell us a little bit about kind of some of the things you've seen there and things that might be applicable?

Jim Ronquest: So yeah, one of the things that we always do, of course, as duck hunters, we watch the weather four, five, six times a day. I've looked at it twice now. I'm going to ask it five times, what's the way the wind's blowing in the morning? What's happening with what or where? Where are we going? But if I'm on big water or long runs, I'm going to be paying attention to the weather. What's coming? Is that big wind going to hit? at 10 o'clock it's blowing light and variable at shooting time but by 9 30 10 o'clock we got a 25 mile an hour southwest wind blowing upstream and blowing against the current now we may have an issue somewhere or ice flow on the Missouri River so a few years ago we were hunting out in Nebraska near pretty popular spot, confluence of a couple rivers in eastern Nebraska. And the ice flow got so bad, it kind of pinned in some folks inside of a WMA. They couldn't get you out. The ice was rising off the Missouri River and they were stuck. They couldn't motor, they couldn't go anywhere. And they had to call in a helicopter, come in and got them and their dog the most valuable stuff they could carry, but they had to wait until later in the year to let, to the thaw to come find their boat. I don't know how it all worked out, but you can YouTube it and find a, you can see the news story on it. The helicopter going to the, we would call it Duckwoods, but to a public marsh and getting guys out of a boat and had a big nice boat line. So no telling what happened to it. If y'all ever been around any ice floating in the river, big chunks of ice flow in a fast moving river, It's very dangerous. It will bend up a very well-built aluminum boat. So that's something you want to definitely be careful of if you're hunting some of those rivers out west. I've never been on the Snake or the Big Horn or any of those, but I would assume with all the cold weather, you get some pretty good ice chunks, ice flow going down it. I know I've seen it on the Missouri River quite a bit, and you get out in that, you can have an issue. So always things to think about there, watching the weather, watching the water levels. Is it falling fast? Is it rising fast? What's it doing? All little things that can add up to keep you from maybe having to get airlifted out or having a boat stuck somewhere. I've had buddies that hunt on the coast that wasn't paying attention to the tide and all of a sudden the water falls out from underneath them. And you've got to wait for the tide to come back up to get out. So, while it sounds like a lot, those little things that you will always pay attention to that will keep you from being in a bind.

Mike Brasher: Yeah. I'm pretty sure Mark Petrie has a buddy out in Washington that had a situation kind of like what you're talking about there, Jim. I think they were cutting it real close. I always talk to Mark about when they're going out hunting near the mouth of the Columbia River and the tide cycle is always a big part of that. Waves, wave height, wind direction, all that is part of the concern and some of the calculations he always makes. I think he was telling me a story about him buddy of his and their hunting party, Mark, wasn't part of this, but I think there's like some stretch of water out there just off the coast or some little spot just off the coast where you have to get back before the tide falls to a certain level or you're not going to get back. It's like some sandbar or some shoal that you have to get across and they either miscalculated or were a little bit late and so I think they ended up running to ground and I don't remember exactly how long they had to wait if they were able to get pulled off or what, but They were okay and eventually made it back, but those type of things that you're talking about, they happen. You gotta be educated.

Jerad Henson: Similar stories, yeah, down in Louisiana and Texas. on the gulf side with people having to spend a night out there waiting for the next tide to come in.

Jim Ronquest: That's not fun. I'll tell you another one too. There's some places that we've hunt and have hunted in the past where you drive your truck into and then have a little boat that you just float your guns and decoys and stuff in. If you get to one of those places and you know that water's either rising or falling, Take your pocket knife or something, make a mark on a tree, or find something that's sticking to ground so you can watch what that water's doing. I've known of several people in the past been hung up in White River bottoms, water come up too fast, now they can't get across that slough they drove across earlier. Or water's falling so much now, we can't get the boat across the ridge or something to that effect. So those are all things you should pay attention to.

Jerad Henson: And you can find all that information real easy through the USGS. river gauges, you should be very comfortable though. And a lot of the big rivers are going to have predictive gauges. They're going to tell you what to expect. And so you should make yourself real familiar with that. I think one of the funny things that I was talking to a buddy about the other day is, how do you know a duck hunter? How many weather apps do they have on their phone? Because I think I have four. And they're all better at certain things. Yeah.

Jim Ronquest: Yeah. Yeah. I see one forecast and I gotta, I gotta bet on what's, what's the other guys, what are they saying? You know, where's his matchup at?

Jerad Henson: Weatherman likes to lie.

Mike Brasher: Yep. And then if you're on the coastline, you're looking at tide gauges as well. And, uh, so it, it, it's a number of them. You can fill up a whole phone with those things and you can find them.

Jerad Henson: It is very important, a good GPS system, whatever you have or whatever you need. And like you mentioned in the fog, I've been caught in a, we got a little weird, wasn't predicted, almost a whiteout snow flurry one morning. Put the boat in the water, took off up river. And it started snowing a little, and a little, I mean, it wasn't five minutes, and you couldn't see 100 feet in front of the boat. It was snowing so hard. And it's one of those things, you got to turn the big headlight off, your big running light off, because you can't see anything. You're creeping over the edge of the woods, and just creep up the bank to where you can get to where you can. It only snowed for like 45 minutes, but a run that normally takes us 20 minutes took us an hour and a half.

Jim Ronquest: Right? Yeah, a big light will, light fog or something will make you turn your blind where you can't see. You know, if there's nothing for it to reflect off of. The worst for me is if you're out in big water and you turn your light on or white water and you can't, all you see is the glare off the light in the fog. You don't know where you're at. There was a morning I was going up a very proper river here at home and it was bad foggy like that. We had the red and the green on and I used to always go across the river and follow the banks up. um and was going along wasn't trying to get in a hurry next thing you know I turned around I had gone back across the river again on a place that I know pretty well you know you never know and that's another point I meant to make earlier I will make this one I always try it's not always possible but if I'm hunting a river system I always try to access where I'm hunting going upriver. I try to hunt above where I park my truck. You're not always able to do that, not at all. That's why you want a really good running outboard that you really, is very reliable. But I always try to go upriver from where I park the truck to hunt, fish, do whatever. I can always float back. A couple years can go. This is kind of a funny one. Back to my story about I can't really swim. My wife and I wanted to, she loved to go boat riding in the summertime. We took a ride, had a boat, been worked on, and all of a sudden quit running. Wasn't running right, and I look back, and I see some smoke coming out from under the cali. I'm like, ain't good. So I get it off there, and there's a little bit of fire, so I turned around and said, honey. I didn't have a life jacket on, I said, honey. hand me a life jacket and hand me a fire extinguisher. She's like, why? I said, I think the motor might be on fire. And I said, I'm gonna take my chances with the life jacket if it starts burning anymore. Well, I kept my cool, fire went out on its own, got my life jacket on, but now I'm paddling down the river and said, nope, we're just gonna have a long float here, honey. It's gonna take a minute to get to the truck. The hard part was the truck was parked on the channel side of the bend and the river was wanting to push me out to the middle. And you better start paddling your butt off way upstream to try to angle across there to get to where you gotta go or you're gonna miss it. And you think, well, maybe this summertime somebody else will be riding down the river. No, nobody came by. We just had to float on in there. And again, that could have been a bad deal too.

Jerad Henson: And if you're ever out there, you know, and the, you guys listening that, that do hunt those areas and things like that, if you see someone struggling, help them out. Yeah. I mean, I've seen it a lot where people just keep on going. check on somebody. It may be you next time. Yeah.

Jim Ronquest: And if they look like they're having trouble, you can tell. I met some guys one time coming out of a very proper WMA over here, and I seen they were having boat trouble. I stopped to ask them, and they said, yeah, we tore the lower unit off my boat. And then they go, hey, man, is that tank? The old dog I had named Tank, everybody liked us. Yeah, it's him. He pulled up there, he hopped in the boat. He said, you need a pull? No, it's one of my buddies coming, we'll be all right. Thanks for stopping in, but you just never know.

Mike Brasher: You can tell Jimbo is an experienced, very experienced duck hunter. By the way, he tells his story. I've counted at least three if not four times, probably more than that, where you said, we were hunting near a very popular WMA. We were up on this very popular river. We were hunting near the confluence of these two prominent rivers near a pretty popular WMA. You don't give away your spots, man, by name. I try not to.

Jim Ronquest: They'll figure it out probably. They already have. All my secrets are gone.

Jerad Henson: That's some skill. Another thing too is when the water starts to come up on those things, I think that's something that we didn't mention earlier. It starts to come up just a little, it's creeping up, and it's starting to back out in the backwoods or the backwater wherever. That happened at one point earlier this year and last year, and you generally get that pretty much every year. I think in one day, I saw three broke tiller handles with people running too hot as the water was coming up, thinking that they could get into places, didn't, hadn't run it at that water level. And so I stopped to check on one guy, and he was up. sitting on the top of his cowling, holding the cowling at idle, just putting out. Motor's running fine, but that was the only way he could steer it. No way. So it was a big boat. I mean, it was like an 18 foot boat with a 70 horse or something like that.

Mike Brasher: So help me with this. Help me. Broke the tiller handle? Oh yeah.

Jerad Henson: You hit a big object. I think it'll kick up so hard. It'll snap those tiller handles. I have not experienced that. That's a pretty common thing for people running in

Jim Ronquest: Basically, if you got a breakaway plate, always put a limiter on it, it'll stop that motor from getting in the boat with you. That's happened a lot, for sure. I broke a bracket one day on a 25 horse, a mountain bracket. Same deal, I was running to a place I didn't know, and one of them logs had laid under the water and you couldn't see, and I hit it hard enough that it I was able to get to the truck fine, but it broke where the mounting bracket bolts to the transom on the outside of the boat. It broke it on one half side, so I had one side to hold it, so I just had to put my way in. But that's not a good feeling.

Mike Brasher: No. Nope. You do enough of this, you'll get those stories, though.

Jerad Henson: Yeah, of course. You gotta be prepared. And I think that's a good time for us to kind of get to a closing remark. So, Jim, what are your must-haves when you're running the river?

Jim Ronquest: What are the things… Man, I keep a little toolbox with me that's got extra prop nut, extra key, a ratchet and a socket that'll fit, spark plug. A couple of main basic wrenches that will fit certain things on the motor that I don't need a full tool set, but I know what tools I would need. Phillips and regular screwdriver. different wires for maybe a jump wire or something, if I got to jump across something, jump across the cello or something like that. Two pair of small vice grips with niggles on, that way if you do have to hold a wire on or something, or you have to fix a throttle, we had to ride out the gator tail throttle one day and cut it and put my vice grips on it. That's how I ran the throttle, you know. Extra fuses for every fuse, every electrical component in the boat that is required to get you from point A to point B. And a shop towel, it's in WD-40. And then I got my maps and my boat papers and all that stuff. I use one of them little waterproof boxes, got a zipper in it, works out great. I'll give a shout out to them. The folks at Yeti, those GO boxes are fantastic to keep in your boat. Put some tools in, whatnot, they're excellent.

Jerad Henson: I like it. Yeah. I mean, that's, that seems pretty thorough. That's about everything I got. Plus some that I need to add to my collection now. And I do run a mud motor. And so I do keep a spare, uh, throttle cable. If they kink you're stuck wide open.

Jim Ronquest: You know, or, or just the opposite. You're stuck at half throttle and you're a long way home.

Jerad Henson: Yeah. Long way home.

Mike Brasher: So Jimbo, how important is like, I think about talking with you every year as we get closer to duck season. Every time I talk to you come August, September, you're getting ready, you're working on something. And I would say every now and then I talk to you and you say, I'm running behind, I need to do this, I need to do that. How do you how do you stay I guess committed and diligent on on on making sure you got everything in that boat? I mean, it's just with experience you understand the consequences if you don't pretty much and you know, i'm kind of a

Jim Ronquest: boat nerd. So if I know, say, in that process of getting ready as far as brushing blinds, cleaning out pits, building blinds, working on food plots, whatever it is, you know, off and on during summertime, we're going to go to the river one day, go fishing, go boat riding, go something. I use my same boats for that. The other side of that is, as you come into duck season, Even this year, it started off dry. I get in my mind, if we're going hunting in the bottoms in the morning, I'm going to go through my stuff. I'm going to make sure that I've got a throwable cushion in there, that I've got enough life jackets in there, that I've got my little toolbox that's got all my boat papers and tools in it. I'm going to make sure that stuff's all there, and I'm going to check my fuel, check my wires, and I'm going to go kick it. If it hasn't run in a while, I'm going to put the muffs on, and I'm going to kick it off and make sure it starts right there in the yard. There's been a lot of times in the past where all of a sudden you're not ready and the water hits you and you're running crazy at night, scrambling trying to get it. And you're 10 o'clock and you're putting a must on the motor to make sure it will hit. But I have done that before. But I also, I kind of know where all my stuff is. I just got to go get it together and put it all there.

Jerad Henson: Yeah. I've got a set of stuff that just stays in there.

Jim Ronquest: That's right. Exactly. The smart play is come middle October, around our parts, get your stuff together, get your boat service stuff, go run it, go make sure it's good. When you put it back on the trailer, talking about the older two-strokes, which is most of what I got are old motors, I'd run the fuel out of them and run them dry and make sure I had some good fuel stabilizer in my fuel. The state bill boat stuff is really good, state marine state bill, and I'll run other good stuff in there, in my boat gas, to make sure it's fresh and ready and my oil's mixed up. We'll make sure all that's good. And you dry that carburetor out, it'll kick off every time. Now, these newer motors, with the closed-line fuel systems and the four-stroke, they may be different. I'm not going to speak for them. You may not need to run the gas out of them as much.

Jerad Henson: I think with ethanol gas, it's best. It doesn't matter what. If you've got ethanol gas, if you can find ethanol free, obviously that's always preferred. My dad's got one of the nice four strokes and that's what they say is run. Ethanol free if you can. Um, it does, it does seem to be better. It'll, it'll, it'll fire up quick, but, uh, but yeah, that's, uh, those carbureted motors got cleaned out. Yeah.

Jim Ronquest: Keep them clean. They'll keep you clean. And if you run it every day again, man, even you think I'm not going to put it up yet. run that stable marine fuel stabilizer in there. That'll always keep it running.

Jerad Henson: Yeah, I run a little seafoam through my stuff.

Jim Ronquest: Seafoam too. I run seafoam every day. Yeah. About a gallon. So the last couple of years that I was in the commercial guide business, and we were able to legally commercial hunt on Refuge and WMA. I would buy seafoam by the gallon, and every time I'd mix it up, I'd add so much stable, so much seafoam. And man, them motors running every day, didn't matter how cold or whatever, you hit the button and they'd kick off.

Jerad Henson: Well, Jimbo, this has been awesome. I think we're going to wrap it up here. I want to thank Jim Ronquist, Drake Waterfowl for joining us today and imparting a lot of experience and knowledge and some suggestions to us. I want to thank my co-host, Mike Grazier.

Mike Brasher: You know, I learned a lot. I do not have a lot of experience running the river. I always love hearing Jimbo tell his stories. You have tenfold as many as you told today and look forward to the next time that we can get together around the fire and cold beer and you can tell us more of these.

Jerad Henson: And maybe do a part two.

Mike Brasher: Maybe do a part two. On site is always better.

Jerad Henson: Yes, sir.

Mike Brasher: And yeah, I have enjoyed the opportunity to learn a few things and hope everybody else has too.

Jerad Henson: It has been. It's been great. We got to thank our awesome podcast staff. We've got Chris and Rachel in here keeping us, uh, operating well. So thank y'all so much. And, uh, got to thank the listeners. Thank y'all for tuning in and catch you out there. Happy hunting y'all.