Ducks Unlimited Podcast

Matt Harrison: All right, we are back for part two at the DSC, Ducks Unlimited podcast. Have Chad with me here again. We're going to have a couple more corporate partners join in on the Ducks Unlimited podcast, but our other two that joined in on the previous podcast went amazing, and we're super excited. Chad, Is the show going good so far?

Chad Ledford: Show's going fantastic. Lots of folks coming in and out. Uh, weather has been a little bit of an issue this week. Uh, but Hey, if we get snow in the South, it's always kind of a iffy situation. So overall though, going really well.

Matt Harrison: Wonderful. We're going to have a couple more corporate partners. Like I said, jump on the duck, submit a podcast. So y'all stay tuned. All right, now we have with us Mr. Jason Nash from Federal Ammunition. Jason, how you doing? Doing great. Thanks, Matt. Absolutely, absolutely. Well, we are here at Dallas Safari Club International, and got a bunch of booths all around the show floor. And Federal has an amazing looking booth, so it's looking good. And anyway, Federal is a corporate partner of ours, and we're going to dive off into that just a little bit here in a couple minutes. But before we do all that, Jason, if you can, give us a little bit of backstory about what you do for Federal Ammunition and what y'all have going on.

Jason Nash: Yeah, for sure. Thanks for having me. Yep. I've been with Federal for 21 years. Wow. Yeah, it's been a great career, wonderful company. We've worked with DU for a number of those years, so really proud of that. I'm the Vice President of Marketing. Wow. So, got a great team here that helps set up that booth and make sure we've got the right, you know, documents and the right presentation here at these shows, so it's really exciting to come see it live and in action.

Matt Harrison: Wow. Wow, 21 years. That is amazing. It's almost as long as I've been alive.

Jason Nash: Oh no, don't tell me that.

Matt Harrison: Wow, that's awesome. So, have you been with them your whole, you know, career, or did you do something before?

Jason Nash: I actually came out of the advertising agency world, so about five years of work at different agencies, and then the opportunity came to work for an agency doing work for Federal, and then they hired me on directly after about a year or so. That is awesome. That is really cool.

Matt Harrison: Cool story. Well, you know, talk a little bit about any of the products that y'all have that just came out or that's gonna be coming out, because I know that y'all have got some waterfowl-specific loads that are pretty bad to the bone.

Jason Nash: Yeah, you know, people know us for Black Cloud and some of our tungsten-based shot, but over the last couple of years, we've introduced products like Heavy Bismuth, which is actually made by Heavy Shot. We load their U.S.-manufactured bismuth shot in our loads, in our premium loads. And then we also have a new one called Ultra Steel, which is a stacked load, very similar to Black Cloud, but without the pellets that are flight stopper, we call them, that have the edge on them. So, stacked loads have been all the rage. It uses our flight control wad, which is a fantastic product.

Matt Harrison: Now, is that a load that just came out, or has that been out a little while now?

Jason Nash: The Ultra Steel came out just this last year, so it hasn't been out very long. So if people haven't seen it on the shelves, pick it up, give it a try. Wow. Now, do you waterfowl hunt? I do, yep. I didn't a whole lot this year, unfortunately, but I have a lot. I love waterfowl hunting. Wow. What's your favorite load? I like Black Cloud. D, that's your go-to? Yeah, it's my go-to. The OG, huh? Yeah, hard to beat.

Matt Harrison: Now, what is a shale that you would say is the fan favorite, like is it the Black Cloud, is it the Stacked, is it, what have you kind of seen with the new, you know, kind of evolution of shotgun shells, you know, used to there really wasn't any Stack, now you see, you know, a good bit of that around, so what's kind of, from y'all's side of things, what would you say is kind of a fan favorite?

Jason Nash: I'd say, you know, three inch number twos in Black Cloud, I mean, sell those all the time. I mean, people love that product, and it works really well. And we also have steel shot, just kind of a base-level steel shot called Speed Shock. And that product does great for us, too. You know, we have a partnership with Rob Roberts and his Custom Guns, and he goes through a ton of what he calls blue box, and it really works well.

Matt Harrison: Wow, that's really cool. And so, do y'all go to a bunch of these types of shows throughout the year? Is this something that you do a lot of, or is this

Jason Nash: Yeah, we do, and we try to get to personally as many as we can to interact with the end users of the product, because that's where you learn the most about the product, how well it's working, what the trends are. So yeah, we go to, gosh, probably 50 shows in a year between sales shows, trade shows, and consumer shows.

Matt Harrison: Wow. And now y'all are a corporate partner of Ducks Unlimited, and we've had a great partnership for a while, and it's been great to get to work together, to have a brand like Federal to work with us and to support wetlands conservation is huge and we thank you for that. So is there any cool information that may be coming out here soon? Or can you talk about anything that waterfowlers may want to hear? Probably shouldn't talk too much or give too much information.

Jason Nash: We always have something in the works, but for the most part, we're sticking with our loads that we have out in the market today. and promoting partners like Ducks Unlimited. I mean, we've been partners a long time. You know, I was part of a Grasslands for Tomorrow initiative partnership that we did with Ducks Unlimited. And so we're really proud to be partners with DU and the banquets. And conservation's always been a really important part to the federal story, making sure that we're always giving back. ensuring that there's habitat and game to hunt for generations. No doubt.

Matt Harrison: And now we know that the waterfowl and shotgun shell side of things is a big aspect. What would you say, game-wise, is the number one game for federal ammunition? Is it waterfowl? Is it shotgun loads? Is it rifle loads?

Jason Nash: Waterfowl's up there, I mean, in a show like this at DSC, we're really focused on centerfire rifle ammunition for the most part. Obviously, everybody here likes to shoot multiple species of animals, and we love that, but we have a new product called 7 Backcountry in rifle ammunition that we're introducing here that's pretty exciting.

Matt Harrison: So that was just released.

Jason Nash: Yeah, in fact, this is the first show that it's been at.

Matt Harrison: Wow. Now, can you talk a little bit about that load?

Jason Nash: Yeah, absolutely. It actually uses a new alloy case that we're calling Peak Alloy. And that's what's different. It allows higher pressures. So the trend with rifle hunting right now is shorter barrels, suppressors. So we partnered with Silencer Central on their backcountry suppressor, our backcountry cartridge. And this gives you a velocity that you'd expect out of a Magnum cartridge without additional felt recoil and out of a shorter barrel platform. Wow. Sounds sounds pretty impressive. Yeah, we're excited We got a lot of buzz initially here and and I think as people get their hands on it and shoot it. They're really gonna Enjoy the experience and and it's really gonna revolutionize the way they think about You know long-range hunting and short-barrel guns. No doubt.

Matt Harrison: No doubt. Well Jason Thank you so much for carving some time out to hop on the ducks on the podcast. We thank you. We thank federal ammunition you know, for being a sponsor to Ducks Unlimited and Wetlands Conservation and, you know, enjoy the rest of the couple days here. Try to stay safe with all this weather moving in. We got some pretty nasty weather here in Atlanta moving in, so stay safe out there and thank you so much again for hopping on the DU Podcast.

Jason Nash: Thank you. We appreciate the partnership.

Matt Harrison: All right, and next up we have with us Mr. Tom Smith with Wild Rose Kennels. Tom, how you doing? I'm doing great. Happy to be here at Dallas Safari Club. Happy to be with our partners from DU to talk a little bit of dogs. Yes, absolutely. I'm excited too because if you're a waterfowl hunter, You're normally around our dogs, and I love to talk about it. I love to talk about the ins and outs of it. And so, give us a little bit of backstory of who you are, what you do with Wild Rose, and give our listeners a little bit of a history run for us.

Tom Smith: I own the Wild Rose Oxford facility. Just turned the sixth year on January 1st. Wow. So, I don't know where the last six years have gone, but it's been really fast. So, I got involved with Wildrose. I bought my first dog from them in 08 and just fell in love with that particular, the British Labrador, the staff, the facility, the training methodology. I wish I had known it back in 98 when I trained my first dog, sorta. And then I got real involved, became an associate trainer in 2010. Sold my company in 12, came to work there full time as a GM under Mike and Kathy for four and a half years, and then made the purchase on January 1st of 19.

Matt Harrison: That is awesome. So now, what got you in to training dogs? What got your interest?

Tom Smith: I had never waterfowl hunted until I think I was 26. Wow. 1994, I was in Alaska and me and my buddy decided to start duck hunting. Yeah, we were really good at it, too. So that got me into it. Well, then having to chase the ducks or wait for the breeze to blow them to the shore kind of didn't really work. So when I got out of the Army, I bought my first dog, and of course, I tried to train it myself. If there were a thousand mistakes to be made, I made 9,372. And just fell in love with the process. I'm a process kind of guy and just the process, not only process, but figuring out every dog has a different motivator. What makes the dog tick to get them to do what they're naturally bred to do. And that's what really made it really fun for me. And the other thing I really like doing is instructing. Helping people with their dogs. Showing them. Teaching. Teaching, yes. A hundred percent. And teaching them, you know, little tricks they can do with their dog to get that next level out of their dog.

Matt Harrison: Wow. That's really cool. And so Ducks Unlimited and Wild Rose has a great partnership. Had a partnership for a long time and it's been great strong relationship. Can you talk a little bit about how kind of that got started and kind of the history behind that?

Tom Smith: Mike was very involved in DU late 90s early 2000s so in 2001 he approached them about doing a mascot and we imported Drake from the UK and he was the first Ducks Unlimited mascot and so the first set of dog training tips for DUTV were Drake coming up as a puppy going through the training program. So that's how that got started. And Mike actually found a bunch of the old videos and stuff when we were going through some archives. Wow. So we put some of those up in our journal. And of course, when Drake got older, we went to Deke, the second DU mascot. So we've had a very long-standing partnership with DU. Basically, if they call and say they need something, we say, yes. Wow.

Matt Harrison: There's really not a question about it. That's so cool. And so you joined up with Mike in what year was that? You told me just a second ago. 2010 is when I really got super involved. And previous to that, you were still training dogs, correct?

Tom Smith: No, just my personal dog. Oh, your personal dog. Yeah, I did not. I guess 2010 is when I dipped my toe in the professional quote-unquote professional dog training and in 14 I became full-time.

Matt Harrison: Wow. And so y'all are here at the show in Atlanta, Georgia. What are y'all doing here at the show? I noticed that y'all had a couple dogs down there displayed. What was y'all's kind of goal here at the show?

Tom Smith: educate people who we are, where we are, because not only we have Oxford, Mississippi, we've got Dallas, Texas, Mebane, North Carolina, and Sheboygan, Wisconsin. So a lot of people converge for this show from all over the country, and they're like, well, you know, Wisconsin's a really long way from Mississippi. Well, we've got a kennel in Wisconsin. We've got a kennel in North Carolina for the East Coast. And then Dallas, of course, how can you not have a kennel in Dallas?

Matt Harrison: Wow, that's really cool. I didn't even know, I didn't even know that. I mean, that's fascinating to know that there's that many kennels. Roughly how many, how many dogs are at the kennels?

Tom Smith: Mine, I have about a hundred. A hundred dogs. Wow. Between, between broodstock and training dogs. upcoming puppies or backgrounding or upcoming brood stock. So, around 100. We're the biggest out of the four, because we've been here the longest.

Matt Harrison: Wow. So, how many staff, like 100 dogs, I mean, that's unbelievable. How many staff members are there to help with that number? Right now, I've got 21.

Tom Smith: About half are full-time, half are part-time. And we are extremely blessed. I've got my healthcare supervisor, she's been there 22 years. General manager's been there 17. Almost all three trainers are right at the nine, 10-year mark. They came up from part-time in college scooping dog poop to learning how to train and coming up through the ranks and learning how to do everything around the property.

Matt Harrison: Wow. So now give our listeners a little bit, and there's some people that are well-educated and some people not. So do y'all start when they're a puppy? Do y'all do some puppy training? There's a certain age requirement to start training the dog. How do y'all do it at Wildrose?

Tom Smith: We're very a la carte. So the pretty much standard path is everybody picks up their puppies at eight weeks, brings them back to us at seven months, and how long they're there depends on what they're looking for. Obedience might be two months, adventure dog three to four, and gundog is in that six month time frame. But some people leave their puppy for a month, get it sleeping through the night and start getting it crate trained. Some people leave their dog for two years. So we're very flexible with our clients because everybody is so busy these days. So we try to be as flexible as we can be with whatever they're looking for in their dog.

Matt Harrison: So a lot of the listeners to the DU podcast are waterfowl hunters and a lot of those hunters also own dogs. Can you give us kind of some tips? So, you know, waterfowl season in most states, some states has already closed, you know, here in the Southern part of the United States, it's about to run out. We're about to, you know, wrap up our season as well. When is a good time kind of get your dog back? you know, to the trainer and start back with training. Is there a period that you need to give them to rest? Like, is there once the season, and I'm sure it depends also how busy your dog was, you know, how much did you hunt it? Did it hunt 60 days out of the year? Did it hunt six days out of the year? But is there kind of a general, you know, conception of, hey, you know, give them a couple weeks and then, you know, return them back? Here's the thing everybody has to remember.

Tom Smith: Dogs are always in training. They're going to pick up good habits or bad habits 365 days a year. Wow. So you kind of have to stay on that program. Yeah. If you've hunted your dog for 60 days and they've lost six, seven pounds, they're looking like a German shorthair, all the ribs are showing, uh, yeah. Give them a couple of weeks. Just, just do some simple stuff. Keep them, keep them on their toes a little bit. But most of our clients bring them back late summer. That September timeframe, get them working through September, October, maybe into early November, get them back. I don't like when they pick them up and then the next day go hunt. go back and work with the dog for a couple weeks. Let them get acclimated back to what the next three months is going to be like. Yeah, and back on their home schedule and everything because it's pretty regimented during the day at the kennel, what time we feed, what time we do this. So get them back in their routine before you start putting them in that ice cold water and chasing those ducks.

Matt Harrison: Yeah, and so y'all are Purina based. Oh, 100%. And Ducks Unlimited, you know, also Purina is a corporate partner, which is an amazing partnership with Purina. How important is nutrition?

Tom Smith: It is the foundation for a good… Let me think how I want to say this. If you don't have good nutrition, your dog is not going to be able to perform in the field. They're going to get tired quicker. They're not going to recover as fast. That nutrition is so important. And the research Purina puts in, I just did their VIP experience. I did that as well. It's amazing.

Matt Harrison: Unbelievable. I was like, wow. I think everybody that owns a dog, that feeds their dog, dog food needs to go and experience that. Like it's truly fascinating to see at all the moving components that go in to Purina.

Tom Smith: Yeah, because they talked about they did what 200 food tests last year?

Matt Harrison: Yeah.

Tom Smith: Something like that? Something crazy. And my question was, how do you test with cats? Because cats just eat when they want. And they said cameras. Yeah. But it was just such an amazing experience. And they are so responsive to any questions we have with nutrition or if the dog… my dog's having skin issues and it seems to be coming from the food, you know, what do we do?

Matt Harrison: And pick them up and they're right back on the spot. I have a very good friend, Dr. RuthAnn Lobos, who's a veterinarian at Purina and I had her on the podcast and we talked about the importance of nutrition and she made a great, great remark. You can tie it to the same as us as humans. You put bad food in your system, you're going to feel bad. A hundred percent. You know, and it's the same way with our, with our, you know, dogs is if you're feeding them what they need, they're going to perform better. They're going to feel better. They're going to be healthier. So it's so important, you know, to realize how important that nutrition side of things is.

Tom Smith: Yeah.

Matt Harrison: Dr. RuthAnn is, she's awesome.

Tom Smith: She's, she's a hoot. We usually do a TV hit together every year for seaweed. Yeah. And so, yeah, me and her have become buddies over the year, but yeah, that nutrition is just so important. People ask me, well, why do you feed Purina? I said, look at my dogs.

Matt Harrison: Yeah.

Tom Smith: Look at how muscled they are. Look at their coat. Their excrement is as it should be and

Matt Harrison: That's the product, that's a product of the nutrition who feed the dogs. No doubt. And people, I don't think, now some do, don't get me wrong, but I think that's kind of a misunderstanding when owning a retriever. You know, is people don't always understand the importance of feeding your dog. the right nutrition that it needs because performance, you know, whenever, if you are a hardcore waterfowl hunter, you're hunting your dog 20, 25, 30 days a year. And if you're not feeding them the way they're supposed to be, it's not good for the dog. They're not going to recover.

Tom Smith: They're going to be more prone to injury. And it's just so important. for the well-being of the dog. Because these dogs are athletes. They are. You know, I've luckily been involved with the Ole Miss football program. I mean, looking at, you know, the linemen eating a certain menu, the running backs eat a certain menu. So it's all geared toward performance. And that's what Purina does with all their different levels of food. Just like my old dog, who's going to be 14 soon, he's on Bright Mind. Wow.

Tom Smith: Yeah. Yeah, Matt, who's down at the booth, that's his grandpa. Wow. That is awesome. He's still in great shape. Um, of course he can't hear or see well unless you crinkle a chip bag. He has that special hearing that you can hear that chip bag.

Matt Harrison: I think that's called hearing what you want to. He's wise and he knows.

Tom Smith: He knows he doesn't have to follow quite as many rules.

Matt Harrison: Selective hearing. Yes, a hundred percent. Oh, that is awesome. Well, Mr. Tom, I can't thank you enough for taking some time to come visit us on the Ducks Limited podcast. Thank you for spending a little bit here, just kind of tell us about what you do and then also some important tips that you've given us.

Tom Smith: Absolutely. Happy to be here. DU's been a very important partner to us in the past, and I'm sure we're going to keep it going for the long-term future.

Matt Harrison: No doubt. Thank you so much, Mr. Tom. Thank you. We want to thank our last two guests for taking time to hop on. It was a great time here at the DSC to be able to have some of our corporate partners and people be able to join in, talk a little bit about their businesses and also really cool things that they have coming up here in the near future. So thank you all so much again for tuning in to the Duck Summit podcast. Can't thank you enough. Y'all take care and God bless.