Ducks Unlimited Podcast

Swell AI Transcript: DUTV #3 Podcast NO MUSIC.mp3
Matt Harrison: Unlimited
Fred Zink: Usually when I come south, I got a fishing pole or a shotgun. I just have my little carry-on. It's still not.

Matt Harrison: Oh, yeah. We're in the middle of March here, and it's time to chase a turkey down this way.

Fred Zink: Yes, sir.

Matt Harrison: Now, do you do much turkey?

Fred Zink: Oh, yeah. Do you? I think I got maybe seven states this year, something like that. Wow. Yeah, about seven. I think so. Yeah.

Matt Harrison: Wow.

Fred Zink: So you're going to do some traveling with it. Oh, yeah. I shot my first turkey when I was 15. Wow. I've been after it for a while. I got 39 years I've been chasing turkeys. Wow.

Matt Harrison: Same for ducks?

Fred Zink: No, I got more time on the ducks. Wow. Yeah, I killed my first duck when I was nine. Wow. Yeah. That's unbelievable. I've been after it for a minute.

Matt Harrison: Well, most of our viewers and most of our listeners know the name Fred Zink. Whether they've blown a duck call, whether they've watched DUTV, whether they've Avian X, whatever it might be, they have came across Fred Zink's name at some point. But I want you to give our listeners a little bit about yourself and kind of how you got started. Well,

Fred Zink: I got started, people say, uh, did you grow up in a family hunting? Yeah, for sure. Yeah, for sure. Um, I, I can't remember not hunting. Like I grew up, I was in the Rocky mountains and elk camp when I was three years old, uh, with my dad. And, um, I just grew up hunting and fishing. That's what I did. You know, in the summertime, uh, I had a fishing pole or a BB gun in my hand every day. I was a farm boy, grew up on a farm. And my dad was a very, very passionate hunter. And later in the year, after he retired, he worked till he was about 75. But in the wintertime, he did excavating. So in the wintertime in Northern Ohio, it's hard to move dirt, right? So he goose hunted every day. Duck and goose hunt, deer hunt, whatever. But my dad grew up, you know, in Northern Indiana. And actually hunted not for a living, hunted to eat, right? straight, honest. And so I grew up with that culture. And that culture is what you shoot, you eat. You shoot anything you want, but you got to eat it, right? And so I just always grew up hunting. And I grew up on a farm and worked in the summer for him and hunted. So I shot my first duck when I was nine. and fell in love with it right away. Just the ability to communicate with a bird through calling. Calling was my first passion. My second passion was decoying. My third passion was hiding from them. So it was just like boom, boom, boom. Summertime, I grew up, we had horses. I grew up on a horse farm. We had about anywhere from 10 to 15, 20 head of horses. And so I grew up, and we farmed alfalfa and Timothy hay. So we had plenty of pheasants, plenty of rabbits around. And when we take our hay off, we had blackbirds everywhere. And so I had, I made, at one time, I probably had 300 blackbird silhouettes I made. And so I'd set a big spread of blackbird decoys and shoot them with a BB gun. And that's what I did in the summertime. I was six, seven, eight, nine years old. So I just grew up with a passion. decoying it's like that's the beauty part of you know we just talked about before we got started here turkey hunting yeah I love to decoy a turkey just like I do a waterfowl and I like the full there's something about when you communicating through calling through decoying and then hide to where you're right there and they have no idea you're there. And when you can fool one of God's creations that's thinking that you're them through calling and a decoy and a hide. And the one thing about decoying is you get them close. And you see things that you never would see if you didn't do that. You know, say you got past shooting ducks. That's fun. Whatever. It's a skill. Because it's a shooting skill. Yeah, right.

Matt Harrison: Yeah, exactly.

Fred Zink: But it doesn't have the skill of calling and making the blind and scouting the right spot and set the decoys right and picking the right decoys and all that. Where that decoying is, same way with turkey, man, getting a turkey five yards, 10 yards away. There's nothing like it. And he's got no idea you're there.

Matt Harrison: There is nothing like it.

Fred Zink: It's awesome. It's awesome. I got started doing that, shot my first duck, blue-winged teal, when I was nine. Tell us that story. Well, we were hunting public land on a little lake in Ohio, central Ohio on the western side called Indian Lake. And we'd go to the blind drawings. It'd be my cousin, my uncle, my dad. It'd be eight, ten of us go there, and you put in, put your name in, boom. You get drawled out, and then you go into the state office, and they might be 25, 30 blinds on a lake, right? And you get first pick, second pick, third pick. So, you go in there, say, I drew number five. You got the fifth pick. Yeah, I go in there, and you go in there and look, say, what's available, you know? And then you pick your blind, and you have a stake, and you go out there, and you build you a blind, and camouflage, and that's your blind for the year, you know, on public water. So, that's what happened, and we had a little blind set up on Indian Lake. Uh, I remember bird come in and landed. I shot him right on the water, you know, and a double barrel Fox 20 gauge and I let him have it right there about 12 yards. That was my first introduction to, um, before I'd go with my BB gun, but that was the first time I went and I could let the fire fly. Oh yeah. That's awesome. And, um, I grew up, you know, I've had, I've had a lab since I've been, as I can remember. Always had bird dogs. My dad had bird dogs. We pheasant hunted. Had Brittany's and we had Pointers and Beasleys. And so I grew up, we'd travel to the Midwest pheasant hunting all the time. We'd go quail hunting, grouse hunting. I've hunted about anything. It could swim, fly, crawl, whatever, right? And so we just grew up doing that. So I was born in 70. So 1979, I shot my first duck. And I just got into this passion about, that's all I wanted to do. My dad was, to be honest with you, my dad was a bird hunter at that point. He was a pheasant hunter. And we go to Kansas, we go all over. At that time, we had a lot of birds. In 78, 79, we had a blizzard come through the Midwest, hit Ohio. And a population of pheasants and quail almost was basically eliminated.

Matt Harrison: Are you serious?

Fred Zink: No, just totally wiped out. State tried to restock them, whatever. It just never took off again. We went from You know, I could walk out my back door with my dad and, you know, we'd go hunt for an hour, come back, we'd have, you know, six, seven pheasants, eight or ten quail, a couple rabbits, whatever, right? And so this duck hunting just took me, just grabbed a hold of me. My dad loved it. We started traveling. I started going to Kansas. We go out every Thanksgiving break. We go to Kansas and hunt public water out there. Glen Elder, Lake Wakanda, which is north central Kansas up there. on the border. And we'd go there with my uncle, my cousin, some of my friends that I went to school with. And we'd go there every year at Thanksgiving and hunt. And I was talking to my uncle one time. My uncle was kind of the caller of the bunch, right? Steve Zink's his name. And he was the guy running the show as far as calling and doing all that stuff. And I just like was infatuated with it. And there was a little magazine, well, it was a newspaper in those days called Wing Supply. Oh, yeah. I was checking you out. I was born. Little yellow newspapers show up. I couldn't wait to get it. And I'd work for my dad bailing hay all summer long, and I'd spend my money, and man, I got trash bags full of calls. You know, Lowman's and Haydell's and a bunch of old, old, some stuff like that. And so every time a new call would come out, I would— You had to have it. Had to have it, because we're looking for the next mousetrap. And so, I started talking to my uncle one time. We were in a blind, and I said, man, I want to get in a calling contest, because I was infatuated with it, right? And at that time, Night and Hail had released a call called the Double Cluck, Double Cluck Plus. And I was pretty fair at blowing it, right? And he goes, oh, I've seen some people, some little kids on TV. You know, there ain't no way you can do it. And I'm like, what? He goes, I'm telling you, these kids are good, and blah, blah, blah, blah. I was like, you know, I'm going to go try it. Well, he was right. My dad, we drove, where the heck we go? Oh, I was telling you, I met Jimbo Rock, so this is about 88. I was probably a senior in high school. 1988, we went to, yeah, we went to Rock Island, Davenport, Moline, what's called the Triple Header back in the day. It was three regionals, and we went there, and I was blowing a rich and tone, I had bought a Coca-Cola rich and tone cigarette.com, and I went out there and blew the .com, I got my butt kicked pretty good. Didn't even have a chance, but didn't know, right? And so the first two contests, I think I didn't even make the second round. First round, I cut the third one through the process of elimination. Two guys not showing up because they'd already won. I think I made the second cut barely. Just barely made it. But I met some very, very cool people there that ended up, one of them, Barney Califf, three-time world champion duck caller, right? Scott Carlson, Jim James, world champion duck caller, Buck Gardner, okay? Bernie Boyle, a bunch of past world champion top shelf callers were there because it was like, I don't know, man, it was like 40, 45 people in these regionals, right? So that was about 88, 88 or 89. And then I went to the Cornhusker Regional, and at that point I was blowing a Carlson call. It was Wendell Carlson, made in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Met Jimbo Ronquest You know, he was blowing a rich and tone, a white McCarter rich and tone at that point. He wasn't sponsored by Rich and Tone. We kind of got it at about the same time. And then in 1989 in the summer, we used to fish for salmon up on Lake Michigan. And I was in a sporting goods store and this little paper layer lay on the desk that said, U.S. Open Goose Calling Contest, Michigan City, Indiana. And it was about 30 minutes from where we had our boat. So I said, I told my dad, I said, next weekend on Saturday, when we get done fishing, I want to go to the scooch calling contest. So we went there and we met Tim Grounds, Sean Mann, Keith McGowan, Randy Bartz, Al Dagger. Like we met the cream of the cream. Yeah. Oh yeah. Adam Rometa. Um, Brian Sullivan, everybody, they, they was like, I don't know, there's like 10 or 12 world champions represented there. And I didn't go there to compete. I went there to listen and trust me, I had, I was like blown away with what these guys could do, you know? And I met Grounds, bought some goose calls from him, and I bought some extra ones so I could start signing with my buddy. So I bought, I think, like a dozen goose calls. And that's how I got started. Grounds took me under his wing. And then I started competing in duck calling and goose calling contests. That would have been in 89 I met him. And I think I won, I think it was 90 or 91. I think it was 90. The next fall, I won the state goose calling championship. Wow. And then, um, I got, I started winning duck calling contests, uh, to compete at the world. I think it was in 92, those times run together. I think 92 was the first time I competed at the world. I got third runner up. Yeah, I think in 92. And then 93, I got second runner up. In 94, I realized at that point that duck calling wasn't my game. Like, I was obviously competitive, but it wasn't what I, competitive duck calling was so far away from duck hunting. that I felt like I was almost getting worse as a duck hunter, or duck caller, to better contest caller. And the other thing that I didn't like about the duck calling is once you won, you were done for the year and to the world. It's called getting your ticket. You qualify, you can't compete no more, right? And so it wasn't fun. You know, when I was going for two or three years and I couldn't win, it was fun because I could go every weekend, you know, six, seven times a year, whatever it was, and get to see all my friends and people or whatever. Then when you won, you just sit at home and kept getting all these flyers in the mail about these goose calling contests, right? I was like, man, I'm going to lean in on that. Because competitive goose calling and calling geese, very similar. Same notes, same quality of sound, same everything. And so my dad and I, my dad was my biggest fan. He took me around everywhere. Everywhere I went, my dad went, right? And so he'd drive me around. And so grounds took me under his wing and I started competing in that. And that was my natural talent. Like every time I practiced, and I practiced every day. Every day I practiced, he's like, I just figured out one note I couldn't do the day before. Or I could do it better, or I come a new sound, new rhythm, new something. So, I started competing pretty heavy about, excuse me, about 92 or 93, somewhere in there with Goose Collin. And I just had, you know, I was from Ohio. There were no other good Goose Collars or Duck Collars from Ohio. I just thank God I had, number one, I had met the right people. Number two, I had talent. Number three, I had a work ethic. And that's about the time when VHS tapes come out. And so, started competing in calling contests, and I went on a pretty good tear. I won a lot of calling contests. And one year, I won over 50,000, like $54,000, $55,000, blowing a goose call. And I worked for my dad doing excavating. We did commercial development, stuff like that. So, on the weekend, I'd do that. I met my wife about 92 or 93, about the same time she started traveling with me. And long story short, we started a little company called Zinc Outdoors in 98. And it was a mail order catalog, and I was selling Mossy Oak Camouflage. I was selling Duck Commander, Duck Calls, Pattern Master. I was selling Outlaw and Final Approach Blinds. And we go to all these shows. You know, one of my first employees was Jeff Foyles.

Matt Harrison: Wow.

Fred Zink: Yep. Uh, as far as Zinc Outdoors goes. And then I had met Ron Latchall and was a part, actually a part owner, a certain part of a final approach for a while. And, and so we were traveling over and then I was also a freelance videographer for Mossy Oak. And so I was behind the camera and in front of the camera as well. And we were filming Whistling Wings stuff, right? And so a lot of the first Whistling Wings videos, I filmed a majority of the footage either in front of the camera or behind the camera, one of the two. So, I had this thing going, it was kind of my sideline deal. And long story short, I wanted to be a full-time at it. I did like doing the excavating, but you know, working with your dad, it can always be tough, right? So, long story short, fast forward, in 2001, or 2000, I started Zink Calls. And so, it was out of necessity from the standpoint of non-stop people calling me and go, hey, I know you sell grounds calls and duck commander, whatever, but do you ever thought about, I want to buy a call with your name on it. I was like, well, I don't make them. Well, after about 300 phone calls, you know, I'm like, man, maybe I should make it. So, I called Grounds up. We talked about it. I wanted to go work for him. That's what I wanted to do. And long story short, it didn't work out. He wanted to keep it small. You know, I totally get it. And so I started Zink Call in the spring of 2000. Actually, my very, very first show I ever went to was the DU Festival. Right here in Memphis, Tennessee.

Matt Harrison: Wow.

Fred Zink: That was in May of 2000. And I showed up and sold every duck call I made.

Matt Harrison: Are you serious?

Fred Zink: Yep. And then about later that year, I think it would have been, I don't know, August, July, August, I started making goose calls or whatever. I sold everything. I think we made a total of 350 calls that year, and we sold them in a blink of an eye. I'm like, wow, this is, like, really good, you know? Selling goose calls for $150 and duck calls for $125 on the side, you know? And there wasn't no credit card then. It was cash. You know what I'm saying? She's sending some cash in or whatever, right? And so it was pretty good, and then… 2000, in that same time that I come here to Memphis, I had designed and developed a blind that later became the Finisher blind, okay, the Avery Finisher. And I had went, a good friend of mine knew Tom Matthews and Alan Hughes at Avery, and said, hey, I got some guys I'd like to introduce you to and show you that blind. So I went there, showed them the blind, they're like, holy crap, we've been trying to figure out how to make a lay down blind that would fold up. Like that, that's it. Would you be interested in licensing? I'm like, I don't know what that means, but probably. If that means I can make some money.

Matt Harrison: Can I make a dollar? Yeah, I'll head. Right.

Fred Zink: And so, uh, long story short, we met with a rep group. Everybody loved it. And, and, uh, so we started making the samples and was ready to go in 2001. It was about June or July. Cause I was on a job site. We were doing a, uh, uh, big, uh, Christian school development where we did a school. We did the playground. We're doing all this stuff, moving all the dirt. And long story short, they call and said, hey man, Matthew's called me and goes, hey man, we're having, you know, I get a page, that was on Pager, I get a page, it was, I remember his number today, 901-409-7734, okay? And I look down and go, all right, boom, go get the, a phone was in a bag in the truck, work truck, go over there, hey, what's going on? Hey, they can't make these blinds, they don't know what's going on, whatever. We're gonna have to cancel these things so we can fix them. I was like, what are they making them? Well, they're making them in China. I was like, I ain't never been there. He goes, me neither. I said, I'll go. He's like, what? You'll go to China? I was like, yeah, because it's like my dream. So he's like, all right, let me find out what you got to have. Well, you got to have a passport, and you got to have a visa and all that stuff. He said, we'll start working on the visa, but you got to go get a passport. So I went and got it. Two weeks later, I'm on a plane. He said, hey, you got to meet this guy named Stuart at LAX. You'll know who he is. Dog blind. He got blonde hair. looks like a spinner bait and he's going to be wearing a bright Hawaiian shirt. I'm like, really? He goes, yep. That's what he's going to look like. So I'm going there. I looked at him. I said, you must be Stuart. And he goes, yes, sir. Are you Fred? Yep. Got on a plane, went to China. I was there for five days. We got it all figured out. They, they, they didn't quite understand what, you know, what we're trying to accomplish. So, that's how I got into the industry, and then the next, basically, a year later, 2002, I went to work full-time. I quit my family business. I told my dad, I was like, I don't want to go pursue my… And my dad was, he was upset, but very supportive because he knew that was my passion and love, you know? And I had a little something talent-wise to be able to innovate and design and develop products. So, long story short, he backed me on the deal, and I went to work for Avery in the spring of 2000, like May or June of 2000. And then at that point, then we started making, you know, tons of different products. I was at the foundation of Green Head Gear, did a lot of carving. That was my baby. I spent over 700 days overseas developing and working on products and stuff like that in Asia. So that got me going. And meanwhile, You know, I had zinc calls going. My wife pretty much ran it. And the dates might be a little off here, but I think about 2003, my very first full-time employee was Fuel Hudnall, which somebody you know, passed those to you. He was my very first employee. My second employee was his brother, Clay. And so they worked for zinc calls, and they would make calls. I'd do my excavating deal. I still did excavating at that, or no, at that point, I was at Avery. But they would do all that work and do all that stuff. And then I'd come home when I get done with Avery. I'd work there at night or whatever. So we kind of paralleled. And that's how I got going, got in the industry. Doing Avery, Greenhead Gears, Zink Calls. And then in 2009, I resigned from Avery November 2009. I took about It's kind of weird. People talk about, hey, I want to be, I want to start my own business. I want to make a bunch of money. I want to do what you did and all this stuff. But I never took a check out of those Zink calls personally until 2009.

Matt Harrison: Wow.

Fred Zink: So I started in 2000. Never took a check out until 2009. It wasn't because it wasn't a successful business. I just put my money back in. My wife worked for it, right? I just put my money back in growing the company, right? So, 2009 resigned. I took about six to eight months off. I didn't know what else. I was just like, man, I want to concentrate on zinc calls. And I just, I need a little bit, because I had been gone on the road non-stop during that whole period of time. And I was like, man, I've learned so much. I got so many connections overseas. I know a lot about building product and decoys. So then I started Avian-X in 2010 and I shipped our first product in 2011. Wow. Yeah.

Matt Harrison: Is it what you thought it would be like at this point? Or is it bigger?

Fred Zink: It's still almost like a dream, right? Like, uh, I never, I haven't set alarm clock to get up. Now, if I got to get, get on a airplane, you know, five, six o'clock in the morning or something important, I'll set my alarm clock. I haven't set my alarm clock probably 20 years. I just get up. That is awesome. I just get up. No need to, but I get up because I want to get up, right?

Matt Harrison: But it's like you said, too. I mean, you spent how many days, over 700 days? 700 days, yeah.

Fred Zink: Overseas.

Matt Harrison: I mean, you put in the time, and that's what me and Doug talked about is, you know, to be in the positions that y'all are in is, you know, you hear a lot of times, a lot of people say, man, you're so lucky. You're so lucky that you're like, You know what a definition of luck?

Matt Harrison: Yeah.

Fred Zink: You know what it is? It's when a hard work and opportunity meet.

Matt Harrison: Yup.

Fred Zink: Right? And you can't have one without the other. You can't. No. Luck is winning the lottery. Correct. Being successful doesn't have anything to do with luck. Exactly. But that, you know, people don't understand that.

Matt Harrison: They just, man, you're so lucky to be in the position you are.

Fred Zink: Yeah, a lot of people, they get lucky enough to be in the right opportunity, but they didn't have either preparation or the hard work or that work ethic. in front of it to take advantage of that opportunity. Yeah, no doubt.

Matt Harrison: Well, thank you for giving us a little- What about you? Give me your little story now. Well, my story's not nearly as cool as yours. Well, that's because you're young. You got some time. Yeah. No, so I kind of, I told this briefly to Doug. I didn't go into major detail, but I kind of got my start. I know you played college ball. I did. I played college baseball. Love, love.

Fred Zink: Are you an infielder or what?

Matt Harrison: I was actually a pitcher. I was a pitcher only my dad. You're right-handed right-handed guy. You got your hair.

Fred Zink: I was a catcher You got your hat on straight. I knew you was not a left-handed.

Matt Harrison: Yeah, exactly Southpaw, you know, but no so our dad played professional baseball for eight years in the athletics organization He was drafted six round out of high school phenomenal athlete way better than me and my brother were. He was a dual sport athlete, quarterback, had chances to play at Southern Miss and also Ole Miss. Great athlete. So we naturally, you know, you come, you come from that work ethic.

Fred Zink: Oh, you were raised with that work.

Matt Harrison: He made a debt for it. And we were taught at a very young age, you know, whatever you start, you finish, there's no quitting, no matter what, no matter what my mom always taught us, you know, that's why a lot of people, they quit.

Fred Zink: They make a bad decision, all right, and halfway through they quit. Well, if you follow that dream or that decision all the way through, sometimes that decision you thought was bad becomes good. Correct. And number two, you learn exactly why that was a bad decision. If you quit halfway through, you lose the bad decision knowledge. Exactly.

Matt Harrison: And that's what our parents, they said, you know, if you decide to quit something, you're going to finish whatever it is you're doing. If it's you don't want to return to play baseball your next year, you're going to finish out your year, and then we can assess the situation after. But you're not quitting anything. You start what you finish. And my mom always taught me, you know, if somebody hires you, being an employee, that you would want to hire if you're the boss. And I always kept that in the back of my mind.

Fred Zink: Being the solution, not the problem.

Matt Harrison: Exactly. And so, you know, we played college baseball growing up, me and my brother both. We loved it. always loved the outdoors. Our dad didn't hunt though, but our papaw did. And he was a huge deer hunter. And every weekend, we were homeschooled, so just about every weekend we would go, we would spend time with him. Well, anyway, we came across, of course, and this is going to sound like, oh, you're one of those. But we were. But we came across an old Duck Commander video. Oh, yeah. And we actually got to meet. This was actually before Duck Dynasty. It was old Duck Commander.

Fred Zink: I used to sell those videos, I know. So him and Coco, I've known the Robinsons since the mid-90s. Because we'd go to places and Phil would be doing a seminar and I'd be doing a seminar. We'd be doing Cabela's Grand Opening, Shields, Gander Mountains, wherever, right? And so I've known Phil forever. So when I started the catalog, one of the first people I called was… Was Phil. Yeah, was Phil. Wow. Well, yeah, it was Miss Kay. Or Miss Kay, yeah. Miss Kay's the one answering the phone. Her or Lisa, that's what I'm trying to tell you. Yeah, that's who run that deal. And so, yeah, that background, when I was a kid, you know, I grew up, not a kid, at that point, is when they released Duckman 1.

Matt Harrison: I used to watch it non-stop. Non-stop. Him and Coco. And so before they actually became, you know, Duck Dynasty come out and all that, it was actually Willie and Jace went to a Mississippi Braves game, which is the AA, used to be the AA affiliate of the Atlanta Braves, and they were there signing autographs, posters. Willie and Jace. there wasn't even hardly anybody in line, you know. So we went up, saw him, got the autograph, and me and my brother were like, man, we really want to try the duck hunting thing. And I was 12 years old and he was like 15. And so anyway, we were like, where do we even go? So how old are you? I'm 26.

Matt Harrison: 26.

Fred Zink: My son's 25, so I'm starting to frame it. Really? Yeah.

Matt Harrison: Young, for sure. You were born in 99 then.

Matt Harrison: 98.

Matt Harrison: 98, okay. But anyway, so we were talking to this guy. He was like, man, I deer hunt this certain area on this river. And he said, every morning there is so many wood ducks, I can't even hardly get in my stand. And we were like, where's it at? He's like, man, it's over here on the Leaf River. And we said, We're going. And sure enough, we went, we jump shot and walked the Leaf River shooting ducks, and then eventually started hunting some WMAs in Mississippi. Then my brother got a scholarship to play in Arkansas, in Monticello, Arkansas. UAM is the university there, so he went and played there. And then he ended up becoming a head land manager there for an unbelievable place, managed down there. And then we kind of got that Arkansas taste of like, man, you know, this is what it's like. So where were you born and raised then? McGee, Mississippi. So just south of Jackson, Mississippi.

Fred Zink: Well, it's good to hear the story. I mean, I follow you on Instagram and podcasts and stuff like that.

Matt Harrison: So it's good to hear your story as well. No doubt. But it's been fun. But like you said, you know, hard work is what gets you to where you're at and taking every opportunity that you can. Now I want to talk a little bit more about the hunting side of things. And we've talked a little bit about your story and stuff, but you've been all over chasing waterfowl. Do you know how many states out of the 50 you've been to? Have you counted?

Fred Zink: No.

Matt Harrison: No?

Fred Zink: No.

Matt Harrison: I wonder how many it is.

Fred Zink: I don't know. I've been to every state that's been good.

Matt Harrison: That's a good point. Well, it's cool, though, just to kind of hear, you know, I don't mean this in an ugly way, but an original. You know, somebody that's older now, and I don't mean that ugly, and you're still not old, but somebody that's kind of paved the way. Because I told you this earlier, and I'm not just saying it because we're on the podcast or live, but one of my first ever duck calls was the powerhand too. It was one of my, literally, staple pieces in my water fowl. Many, many people. Yeah, and so it's just been cool to kind of sit here and talk with you. But I want you to tell us some of your hunting stories, because that is some of my favorite things to talk about to people that have been around in a long time. So what are some of your most memorable hunts, like some of the craziest encounters you've had? Let's, let's start off with this. I got a lot, but I'll keep it short.

Fred Zink: What, what is the best hunt that you've ever been on? Man, it's hard to define best because I guess me hunts with my family, my dad, right? Um, people like I traveled around a long time with Tim grounds and then of course, of course my kids. Um, I've seen so many different things. So this is just a little snapshot. This is, this is, I got to see a lot of places that were really good before they got ruined. Ruined by over-hunting or, you know, over-promoted or over-cell phone, you know, where people know what's going on now, you know? So we were in Oklahoma hunting. We were hunting with two, a regional guy, and I think it was state representative for Oklahoma, and we were down there hunting. And my son Gunner, as I said, he's 25, so he's about the same make as you. And we were down there, I'd say Gunner was probably, man, he was young. I'd say about 12 to 14. I'd say somewhere in there. Let's call him 14, 15 years old. Maybe not even that much. And we're down there and we're wearing them out, right? We're hunting, we're on the edge of this little wheat field and we're shooting specks, lessers, and snows, roskies, blues. I mean, we're putting it on them, right? It was a great hunt. And the guys from Ducks Unlimited sitting right next to Gunner, I'm here, Gunner's to my left, and then the other two fellas right there on the left side, and they go, Gunner, this is an incredible hunt. We've been hunting all of our life. This is the best hunt we've ever been on. How about you? This has got to be incredible. He said, mister, you should have been here yesterday. He goes, why? He goes, this ain't nothing. You should have seen it yesterday. So just that little snap, yeah, that little snapshot, I'm like, you should have been here yesterday. Mister, this ain't nothing. This is a 13, 14-year-old kid telling this guy that's been hunting for 25 years, this ain't nothing. They got that. I've been hunting in the Yukon. Went up there hunting. Walking out, seeing wolf tracks in her, in her wader tracks, walking into this little slew of me and a buddy of mine from Tennessee went up there hunting. I've been to Alaska. I went to Alaska. Actually, it was when I got engaged to my wife. It was Christmas Day. I was leaving the next day to go to Alaska. And I asked her that night to marry me. And then I got on a plane. We flew up here with my buddy from Tennessee again. We flew up there and hunted king eiders. Stellars had just closed, and we had flock after flock of stellars come right into the decoys. I had an emperor goose fly. Of course, it was on the endangered species list then. I had an emperor goose fly over me about 40 yards high, straight over the top. Killed her Kings. The King was probably one of the best shots I ever made in my life. And 10-gauge, so when I was, we was talking earlier about steel shot, how bad it was. So when I was 15 years old, I bought an Ithaca Mag 10 10-gauge when I was 15 years old. And I went into an old gun shop called Old English. It was in Ohio. I'm out there going there. Hey, how can I help you? I said, yeah, sir, I'm Fred Zink. And he goes, Your dad, Fred Sr.? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I said, I want to order a gun from you. He goes, oh yeah, what do you want? I said, I want an Ithaca Mag 10, 28-inch modified. He goes, what? He goes, how old are you? I said, I'm 15 years old. He said, how'd you get here? I said, well, my mom's sitting out of the car. I'm going to need to talk to her.

Matt Harrison: 15 years old, whatever.

Fred Zink: Yeah, she had to come in and fill the paperwork out. I couldn't even fill the paperwork out, right? He said, you got the money? I go, yep. Pulled out cash, prepaid him for it. He put it on order, you know. So I had that gun in Alaska with me. So I bought that gun. So do the math quick. I bought that gun in 85. I was 15 years old. Fast forward to, I believe it was about 92. I'm up there. And I'm out there on this point. I see him coming. And he was two hens. and a drake. And I didn't want to shoot a hen, you know what I mean? I wanted to shoot a drake. And they come, and the two hens were in front of the drake, and the drake was on the back side. And I followed it, and it was about 45, 50 yards. And I followed, followed, and I got about 75 or 80. Now, that's when you could shoot, we were shooting lead, right? I think it was lead, or it might have been steel. I can't remember, Alaska 92, if you had whatever shot. But they split, and that Drake was exposed, and I made a shot. He was probably 80 yards. Are you serious? And I stoned him dead as a hammer, 80 yards with that 10-gauge. No way. I mean, probably one of the coolest. Of course, I was the only one there, because my other buddy was on another point, and the guide was, you know, out looking around. No way. Yeah, that was a cool experience, and that was night two. That was a great experience, and then I hunted In March, I hunted up in Newfoundland for eiders on the migration back north. We hunted off icebergs. And I think I was about 93 or 94, something like that. And so those are great experiences. And I've been on some unbelievable, actually, Matt Young, I seen you talking about, I call it the hill of 10,000, but then more like 15. So we're in North Balfour, Saskatchewan, and Jim Alexander was on the hunt, Matt Young. A couple of my camera guys, Chow Belding was on it. And Chad, we used to dig our blinds in. At that time, we always hunted out of finisher blinds, or excuse me, power hunters. So we wanted to be, pinked, like disappear, right? So we'd always dig them down. So Chad, I said, start digging them holes, almost like this rig. I get all done. I said, you got them holes done? He goes, not yet. I'm like, what are you talking about? I looked down, he had built, he had dug some holes big enough you could have hid your pickup truck in. I said, Chad, what are you doing? This hole's like three feet deep. I said, it needs to be like a foot deep. What are you doing? Oh, what? I go, dude, we got to get going. Like, they're going to start coming in. And so we finished up. I said, you got to go park the car. And so he had a rental car, and I think it was Jim Alexander's car, and he drove it over the hill, and I heard him get up. I'm like, oh, they're up, guys. Sit down. And we come up, and so for some reason, they all got up at one time, the entire roost. And we're up on this knob, and they were down in this river bottom. And when they got up, they all come up at one time and they come up and they started landing. They filled the field full. They were landing in our decoys. It was probably, I call it, it was a video hunt. We call it the field of 10,000. It was like 15,000 lessers. And they landed, we didn't shoot. There was so many of them. We didn't shoot, but it was one of the coolest experiences I had. 15,000 snow geese was laying on him. Another really cool hunt was in the 80s. I met this fella. I can't even think of his name. It's been so long, long ago. He was a diehard duck hunter. Had a boat line out there. He said, hey, what are you doing tomorrow? You want to go goose hunting with me in the afternoon? I was like, yeah, I've never been. Snow goose hunting. I was like, yeah, I never do it. I said, you get decoys? No, we don't need no decoys. I'm like, what? He said, I'll pick you up. I'll take you out there. So we got there, and he had two pieces of burlap. I said, what are we doing? He said, just lay here. And he said, trust me, they're going to be here. And they landed. It was probably, I don't know, 15,000, 20,000 snows. And they come over and landed. And they landed all over the field. And we just lay in there. And he goes, just don't move. I'll tell you when. And they fed right. up onto us. Yeah, they were literally from here to the door. A wall of them.

Matt Harrison: Was that hard pounding?

Fred Zink: Yep. He said, all right, when I say when, go. And it was so loud, we could talk like we're talking. Oh yeah, and you can't hear it. They couldn't even hear us. They had no idea we're there. And we're laying there on a piece of burlap. And we set up, and it was just solid white. I think I was 14, 15 years old. I bet that was a really cool experience because the first time I'd ever really been that close to that many birds, no decoy, no nothing, right? Just straight up.

Matt Harrison: That's unbelievable. What about, what would you say the scaredest you have ever been while chasing waterfowl?

Fred Zink: We did, we've been in some sketchy situations. There was a couple times I should have been scared, but I was too dumb to be scared. We used to hunt Canada geese on frozen lakes, you know, and there was some sketchy stuff. Now, being a parent, I'd go with my dad and, you know, God love my dad, rest in peace, but he probably put us in some situations. Him and my uncle, the way he shit, they probably did. You know, I just remember walking on the ice and it's cracking behind you, right? And we're talking, you know, it wasn't deep, deep, but it was… Deep enough. Yeah, it was over your head deep.

Matt Harrison: Yeah.

Fred Zink: Eight, ten feet. You're falling out water and you're done, you know? Oh, yeah. So that, you know, we did a video hunt. called Divers of the Chesapeake. And we were out there and we were hunting some public water on the Chesapeake Bay. And I was with some guys that I know and trust that are watermen, right? And we had two boats. And I'm like, are you sure? And he goes, we'll be fine. We had rubber hammers. They had rubber hammers because when we got there, we'd have to stop and beat the ice off the boat so they wouldn't sink. I mean, it was probably 10, 10 degrees, zero. It was blowing like 30, 35. You know, the Chesapeake gets chopped, gets rough. And literally got there and people were, faces were solid ice. And just like, it was like, we call it the deadliest catch season 13 type of deal. It was rough and hunting was good. We had great hunts, but You know, looking back, I wasn't really scared because I knew the guys who I was with, and I grew up on the water as well, but I knew we were like right on the edge. One little problem, and you're talking about Care Flight. You're talking about you're going to make Sunday's news, you know what I mean? No, a lot something like that. Yeah.

Matt Harrison: Yeah, like you said almost too dumb to know you're in a situation.

Fred Zink: Yeah.

Matt Harrison: Testosterone and ego gets in the way a lot of good decisions. Well now, moving on, we know that you're passionate about college and we have a lot of listeners that call it ducks, that call it geese, that enjoy calling too. But one thing I want you to explain is, can you tell our listeners and our viewers how to go about choosing the right duck call? Because I think that is one thing that is misunderstood because you have somebody that's just starting out, maybe goes up to somebody that's been around and be like, hey, what call are you blowing? Well, I'm blowing a cut down. And you don't want to start out with that. No. And so can you… No, you do not. So can you explain to our listeners and viewers the best way to go about choosing the right duck call?

Fred Zink: The best way to pick out a good duck call. Now, if this had been 10, 15, 20 years ago, it would have been a different story. Because I will tell you, there were very few call makers 15, 20 years ago that made a call that was worth a flip.

Matt Harrison: Yeah.

Fred Zink: They just simply, most of them didn't work. Today, with CNC technology and everything that's going on, I would say a majority of people's duck calls are pretty solid.

Matt Harrison: Yeah.

Fred Zink: To be honest with you. I would find a friend that you trust and know that's good at it, whether it be a friend, an uncle, cousin, somebody you play baseball with, whatever, that understands a good duck caller and say, hey, what duck call you recommend? What do you got? I'm trying to get started. And then have them tell you the proper way. Most important part would be not really the duck call you buy, but making sure you got the right instruction to go with. It's easy to learn how to blow a duck and a goose call if you have a good instructor right away, but after you do it for a year and a half, two, three, four years, the wrong or incorrect way… It's tough to break that. Bad habits are hard to break, you know? So, you know, goose call or duck call, I love it when a guy, you know, a dad calls me and goes, hey, I got a 12-year-old son. I want to learn how to blow a call. Can you help him? I was like, yeah, bring him over. I'll meet him at a show or whatever. Within 10, 15 minutes, I can have him going and doing it a lot of times better than his dad in some cases, because he don't have any preconceived ideas or bad habits. So, find somebody you trust, somebody that's good, and buy a reputable national brand. I would not, unless you know the guy sounds really good and you're impressed with what he's calling, I wouldn't buy, it's not that they don't exist, but I would not buy a garage-built car. I would go with a reputable brand. That you know is legit. Yep, 100%. If you buy that call, you're gonna have a good duck call, right? So, I would do that, and the same way with a goose call, I would do that, and then get somebody and get started off on the right, and take it slow, and learn the basics. Don't try to be a Jimbo Ronquist on the world stage the first year, you know? Try to sound like a Mallard duck, try to sound like a Canada goose.

Matt Harrison: And that's my next point, and you probably see it more than anybody, but a lot of duck hunters think that what they hear about on Instagram or TikTok of the World Championship, I'm going to try to learn how to blow like that, versus learning how to sound like a duck. Don't do that. So, talk a little bit about how important it is to learn the basic call techniques, but also learning how to read a duck.

Fred Zink: There's a lot to be said about what you just said.

Matt Harrison: That's a whole podcast episode in itself.

Fred Zink: Oh, man. You could talk about it. First of all, try to sound like the species that you're doing, where you're a turkey. Learn how the turkey call, blow a can of goose call, speck call, dot call, okay? Try to mimic the exact sound of what they do. Being natural is very, very important, okay? and not try to overcomplicate it. We call, I call it being realistic and not have the human rhythm. A lot of people have a human rhythm. It's just like if you walked in, if you call me on the phone and we're buddies, as soon as I pick up the phone, you start talking, I know who you are. Because you have a certain tone of your voice, right? A good duck caller, you can't tell who it is, because it just sounds like a duck, sounds like a goose. But a majority of callers, when they start calling, I say, oh, that's so-and-so. Oh, that's so-and-so. Because I not only competed, but I also judged. And I could tell who was, I could be behind a curtain and beat 40 callers, and the top 20, as soon as you started calling, I could write your name down. Because I knew who they were. Some of it is because I've listened to them so much, but some of it is because they have a certain rhythm. But is that rhythm a Canada goose, or is that rhythm a duck, or what is that, right? So, we're talking, we're not talking competitive calling here. We're talking about calling ducks and geese. So, the main thing is, number one, try to sound like this species. Don't try to sound like a human. Number two, spend some time out in the field, listen to ducks and geese and what they do. And what you're going to find out is that people over-call, way over-call. Ducks and geese don't do that. The first thing that, hey man, here comes some ducks, here comes a geese, the first thing you do is they start blowing their duck call. Well, you not only do that, the little blind next to you and the group over there in that hole and the group over there do that and the group over there do that. Ducks and geese get conditioned to that, right? They get conditioned to all that because that's human noise, human rhythm, human thought process. But if you go there and you listen to Mallard Ducks, and I spend a lot of time out, and because I enjoy, I enjoy waterfowl. So, I'm either, if I'm not hunting them, I'm watching them, I'm learning. I like, I love the photograph. So, I go out there, I spend hours photographing waterfowl and spending time in their environment. And it won't take you long. Gunner, like for instance, Gunner and I were in Oklahoma. We had two or three thousand ducks on this little Willow Slough. We were videoing and photographing. We got done after the first night, I said, hey, do you notice anything? He goes, wow, dad, they don't call a lot, do they? I go, no. I said, we make more noise for four dozen decoys in front of us. There's four thousand and they ain't saying nothing. Right? So, I think the number one rule is, just because you have a duck call, you don't need to blow it. If you do, you should have as pure a duck sound as possible, and pure duck sound rhythm, and then we'll get into reading ducks. So, when you get, when you're early in the year, you can call Adam on the corner. Okay? So, if they're going away from you, you call Adam on the corner. As they get a little bit, and you hit them with a, maybe a three to five, seven notes, right? Turn them. Well, that works good in October and November, but by December, that's what duck hunters do, right? So, in December, when they are on the corner, I won't be saying, That's all I'll do, right? And people are like, but they will react to that. And the reason why they react to it is because I always think about it this way, and this is, I've used this analogy for 20 years trying to teach people. To get people's attention with your stereo, say your stereo goes to 10 on the highest volume. If you got it on 10 and you're trying to get people's attention, you can't get it anymore because it's already at 10. But if it's at 5 and you turn to 10, everybody in the room will stop and look at you. Like, hey, what's going on? There's a reaction. So if you're blowing your duck and goose call wide open, not only as far as volume, but as far as cadence and speed and everybody in the blind is blowing at 10, And the Ducks aren't reacting to that, you don't have a 12 to get them to react, right? So, Phil Robinson has said this for years, and I'm a student of the game. I listen when people that I respect, that know what they're doing, say something. I always listen. I might not agree, A lot of times I do agree, but I will test their thought process and their theory out. What Phil says, and he's spot on about this, and I use it a lot, if a duck's flying to you, why would you blow your duck call? Is he going to fly faster to you? No. Okay? So why tell him your location? Why give him anything? They're already coming to you. If he circles once, and you don't blow your duck call, great. If he circles twice and you don't blow your duck call, great, right? He's interested. And so if I'll let a duck come in and circle me once or twice, and I will not even blow my duck call. I'll have my duck call to my mouth the whole time, but I might not say anything. I'll let him circle down, come down, and when he gets downwind, and he's at the right height to where I know he can finish, I'll hit him one time. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. And boom, they come right in. But if you do that and say that duck or that Canada goose or speck is too high, and they can't finish because they're too high, maybe the wind's blowing hard or not hard enough or whatever, and you're looking at angles like he can't get in, and you're just, at that point, you're just calling because you want to call. You're not really trying to trick the duck. And so, if he's too high, I will not call, because I don't want him to turn. Or some times, and I'm not talking about hunting a public area where you have to turn the ducks quicker because you don't want to go too far, but I'm talking about, you don't have that in people around you, right? So, you want to let that duck slide. As they're sliding, they're lower than their altitude if they're wanting to work, right? So, if you turn a duck here, he turns, he's too high, so he circles. Every time a duck circles or goose circles, They're going to get smarter. If you circle three or four times, you ain't going to get them. So was that ducks descending away? He's going away and descending when he gets to the angle to which, you know, he can turn and come in. and they turn and they come right in.

Matt Harrison: Show us on your call what you're, let's say you got a, you know, one or two pair just kind of coasting down.

Fred Zink: Yep, yep. So, I like to, the three basic things that I'm gonna typically do is, I think the most underutilized sound when calling ducks is a quack. I think most people don't use it. But when I spend time in marsh, that's what I hear a lot of ducks doing. So, I quack a lot. Yeah. Okay. So, I do that and a feed. Now, a lot of my feed is It's real subtle because all I am trying to emulate is a duck feeding, flicking on the water. And when another duck gets too close to that duck, a scientist will tell you it's a spacing call. Turkeys, when they purr, aggressive purr, spacing call. When a can of goose murmurs, that's a spacing call. When a mallard duck does what we call a feed call or a cut, that is a spacing call. It's, I am here. Where are you? Okay? Because they're not looking around. They're looking at a piece of rice, a piece of corn, whatever. They're looking here. And they're saying, I'm here. Where are you? And when another duck gets too close, it goes from duck. That's get out of my bubble, right? Because they don't want to share their food. And the same way with a can of goose and a murmur, same way with a turkey with purring or whatever. It's a natural spacing call. So when you're doing a feed call and you're doing soft cuts and then you're ramping it up and soft cuts and ramping it up and soft cuts and ramping it up, What you're emulating is not only ducks feeding, but ducks finding food, okay? So, when ducks are aggressive and they're doing the sharp cuts or whatever, that means they're protecting something, and that something is food, and the ducks in the air, that's why they came there. They're looking for that as well. Same way with geese, same way with turkeys, same way. You're creating aggression on the ground. But a lot of times when the ducks are coming to me, we'll just be just doing feed calls on the water and small quacks. We're not communicating to the ducks at all. We're not making a greeting call whatsoever. We act like they're not even there. We're feeding. We're ducks on the water feeding. And when they circle around, if they circle a couple times and they believe it, the most important part, all this tip, all the stuff we talked about, the most important thing I could tell you is, read body language. And the body language on a duck, and the most important part on a duck or a can of goose, is when they get confused. And that confusion is, they don't know whether they want to go on or land. And I always have my duck caught in my mouth, and I'm watching the ducks, and soon as I see any hesitation, And on Drake Mallard, as he's flying and he's got that head, as soon as he starts panning that head like that, that means he doesn't know, he's in a confused state. And when, as soon as I see that, and boom, they will walk and come right in. So, reading the birds, and I spend so much time with the birds themselves in their natural environment, that the one thing that I learned more than anything is 99% of the people call way too much. Not just a little bit, way too much. And it used to work, Matt, back in the day before people knew how to blow a duck or goose call. When I was a kid, you couldn't blow your goose call too much because nobody else could blow your goose call. You were like the only person. And so you could literally call the geese in. If you could see them, I remember in 1988, there was a drought in Ohio. And we hunted on a public area with a draw blind. And that year, and this, a lot of people say, ah, he's crazy. But I don't remember a flock of Canada geese that I seen that year that I didn't call in.

Matt Harrison: That's unbelievable.

Fred Zink: And I'm being dead serious. I believe you. Maybe there was two flocks, maybe there was 10, maybe there was two. But I don't think there was any. It's not that I was a master, it was just, I was just, could blow a goose call. And the people in my area couldn't blow a goose call, like, at all, right? And now you got people that can. But now everybody can. So, that tool is nowhere near as effective as it used to be. So it's almost reverse now, it's the ones that- I go reverse. I go reverse. People are like, hey, you know, blow your goose call. They're kind of like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. This, let me, let me do the calling. And they're like, what? I said, trust me. I will say traveling all over, I know there's other places like that, but the toughest can of geese I've ever seen to call are right where I live. Like, if you blow your goose call too much, not happening. Not happening. There's so much pressure in the area that, number one, you got to be able to see them move in daylight, because most of the time the honkers only fly at night, after dark. But if they do fly, you got to be really careful with them. Now, when it gets cold and there's snow on the ground, different situation. But I'm talking about October, November, December, you better be careful. You better know what you're doing. We just barely, and I do certain calls, but I read the geese. So on a Canada goose, a quick little note on calling Canada geese for y'all out there that are Canada goose hunters. Keep in mind that Canada goose, the reason why they're calling It's not a greeting call. It's always been, oh, here's a hail call, here's a greeting call, you know, come on in. Do you think that Canada goose that flew off the roofs and flew out to this cornfield land and found a ear of corn to survive? Is calling other Canada geese to come eat that ear of corn? No. He's protecting that ear of corn. He's protecting his family. So it's mom and dad and the young of the year. So that Canada goose, when he's on the ground, will typically not call it geese in the air until the geese in the air get about 50 to 60 yards. at all. Now, they might be calling and clucking and murmuring and all that stuff, but they're not calling to geese in the air. Those geese on the ground will not start calling to geese in the air until them geese in the air are so close and that can of goose on the ground is telling them, do not land next to me. It is a verbal war back and forth. And most people, as soon as they see the geese, they start calling. And when they get to 50 yards, they quit calling because they don't want to mess it up. Hey, quiet down, they're coming, they're coming, they're coming. But real Canada geese do the opposite of that. They don't call at all when they're way off because they want them to go by. Yeah, but once they know, hey, they're- They're kind of like, okay, now I got to start defending my food source and my family group of three or four or five young geese or whatever. So then they start getting aggressive, right? And that's how I call Canada geese, and I do the same thing with ducks. Like, I don't try to call them in, you know? Now, the difference is that is you're on a low pond, you got deep water, they're not feeding. In my opinion, at that point, ducks and geese like to communicate, like to mingle. It's a different scenario, but it's different sounds, different cadence, different aggressiveness. But when you're hunting over food, You're in the timber, they're eating acorns. You're in a marsh where they're eating smartweed, where they're in there eating barnyard grass or smartweed or millet or corn. That's a graphic situation right now. So, we hunt in Ohio, we hunt a lot of natural vegetation and we hunt row crops. We hunt corn, barley, buckwheat, things like that. My ducks are coming there as like a big mature whitetail when he walks into the food plot. They're looking for the boogeyman, right? Because they know there's danger associated with that food plot. Whether it be a waterfowl food plot, a deer food plot, whatever, they know there's danger there. And so you have to be really, really smart and stealthy with your kai, your camo, your decoy placement, and your calling. You have to mimic them exact as possible, because if not, they'll circle two or three times and they're gone. So there's a lot to it, but get a good call. Find someone that knows how to call to help you get on the right way. And then once you get a handle on it, go listen to live ducks, live specks, live honkers in that scenario that you're hunting and listen to them and they will tell you. They're the experts. We just talk about it, but they're the experts.

Matt Harrison: The best thing, like you said, to do is just literally go and listen.

Fred Zink: Go find a refuge. Decoy placement or whatever. I always tell people, they say, how do you set your decoys? I say, what you see on Friday is what you do on Saturday. Because we could talk about decoy spreads, but if the temperature's different, if it's 65, I sent my goose decoys one way. If it's 50, I send them another way. If it's 30, I send them another way. If it's zero, I send them another way. If the wind's blowing hard, I do this. If the wind ain't blowing, it changes, right? There's no, oh, then you do this every day, it works. No. So what you go out and see, get you a good pair of binoculars. What you see on Friday is what you do Saturday. Yeah. Let the live birds teach you. Learn from the wonder child. Learn from the pros. I ain't no pro.

Matt Harrison: I'm just an observer. Yeah. Oh, man. Well, Fred, I can't thank you enough for taking time to just hop on the DU Podcast and give us all the wealth and knowledge that you have here in the past hour. We also want to thank our Ducks Unlimited Podcast listeners for tuning in to the DU Podcast. And also, thank you so much to our podcast producer, Mr. Chris Isaac.