Ep. 705 - Mapping Conservation: OnX Hunt’s DU Layer with Lake Pickle
Can we do a mic check, please? Everybody, welcome back to the Ducks Unlimited podcast. I'm your host, doctor Mike Brazier. I'm your host, Katie Burke. I'm your host, doctor Jared Hemphith.
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Jared Henson:Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Ducks Unlimited podcast. I'm doctor Jared Henson. I'm joining you here from the DU Expo in Memphis, Tennessee, and I got an awesome special guest today. I've got mister Lake Pickle, marketing director or marketing manager.
Jared Henson:There it is. Marketing manager from OnAxe Hunt. Lake, so happy to have you here. You're also cohost of or the the host now of Backwoods University. Yes, sir.
Jared Henson:Part of that MeatEater broadcast crew or podcast crew. Yes, sir. So awesome to have you on.
Lake Pickle:Yeah. Yeah, man. It's it's awesome to be here. This has been a it's been such a fun weekend, man. I've I've never, it's the first time On X has had a booth at at DUX.
Lake Pickle:We've had presents here before, and so this is the first time I've spent the whole weekend here, and this has been such a fun show. It's been a really fun show.
Jared Henson:I've I've heard great things. The turnout's been fantastic. Yeah. We have been, like, tickled to death. The the events staff have done a have done a great job, but it it takes awesome vendors like y'all and partners.
Jared Henson:Right? Not just vendors. On X has come on big over the past year or so for with with DU as well. Right. And And we thank you all for that Well, because that support helps a ton.
Lake Pickle:Well, first, before I even get to that, I was gonna throw it back to, like, to to organize something this big and it be as organized and nice stuff, like that's whoever's behind this at DU, like congrats
Jared Henson:to team is fantastic.
Lake Pickle:Yeah. As far as the the partnership with y'all, man, it's like On X is so we're man, we're so big in hunting access, like hunting access and public land and conservation and advocacy and all that stuff, and you know, it just made sense. It does make sense.
Jared Henson:Yeah. I mean, and that's that y'all are an awesome partner because we have so much mission alive. Mhmm. Right? Like, at the core, conservation, public opportunity, history, heritage Yeah.
Jared Henson:All of that Yeah. Is is a big part of of who D U is and and who hunting community is really. Yeah. And pulling that together is amazing. And I've been a big On fan for a long time.
Jared Henson:Yeah. It's it's an incredible tool. Mhmm. Man, it's so user friendly. I love On X.
Lake Pickle:Yeah. I was a I was a I was a customer of On X for like five or six years before I ever went to work for them. So, yeah, I've been a been a fan of them for a while.
Jared Henson:It helps. It helps a lot. Yeah. I know that your your story's out there, right, just because of of what you've done, but can you give our podcast listeners a little bit of a background on you and kinda how you got to where you are?
Lake Pickle:Yeah. So I was born and raised in Central Mississippi. I grew up in a hunting family, but we mostly were like we hunted the opener dove, which everybody in the South does. You know? Oh, yeah.
Lake Pickle:It's like a it's a it's a social event.
Jared Henson:It is.
Lake Pickle:It is a hunt. And we went dove hunting, and then we would deer hunt some during rifle season. But other than that, my dad was a fisherman. That's where the name that's where the name Lake came from.
Jared Henson:Okay.
Lake Pickle:Yeah. Makes sense. True story. But I man, I just got just really into hunting to to much to the point where I wanted to go more than just rifle hunting deer a couple times a year. Right.
Lake Pickle:Spring turkeys did that for me. And then it's like like the the catalyst I always tell everybody is like I'm I'm pretty rooted in spring turkeys, but like that just led to so many other things. I got into archery hunting whitetails, and then a really good family friends of mine, they were big into duck hunting. And Then you got the bug. They offered to take me, man.
Lake Pickle:And and so the the the first duck I ever shot, I tree topped him. Don't give me I mean, I, you know, I mean.
Jared Henson:It hit the water?
Lake Pickle:It did hit the water, but it was it was a it was a green head mallard, and we were standing in flooded timber, and I I just I I've done it ever since. That's awesome.
Jared Henson:I all
Lake Pickle:but hung up all but hung up I mean, I I I bow hunt in the early part of the season before duck season opens here, but once duck season opens, that's what I'm doing.
Jared Henson:I I am the exact same when it comes to that. Like, I have an addiction to duck hunting at this point. It's about about the only way obsession maybe, but like my me time is in a deer stand, like, I bow hunt. Because I can get that quiet time in there. Sure.
Jared Henson:I'm a public land duck hunter, so like, you don't really get some as much relaxation doing that these days.
Lake Pickle:Peace and the solace, it's not here.
Jared Henson:Yeah. Well, can find it
Lake Pickle:Yeah.
Jared Henson:But it's after you've got your spot to hunt Sure. That kind of thing. Yeah. And that's kind of one of the things I wanted to lead into on today was really kind of emphasizing that importance, like you just already said, on public lands. Mean, On X does a fantastic job at providing access, And I think one of the points I wanted to ask you, I mean, I think something that kind of gets overlooked a lot is not only is that access important and, you it makes America an amazing place to be, it's awesome for biology and wildlife.
Jared Henson:Yeah. But I think it's also what keeps America kind of rooted and grounded. Right? Yeah. Different than Yeah.
Jared Henson:A lot of other places is that we have that pride and we have that exposure to to big tracts of land and public land.
Lake Pickle:Man, if you ever it it made more sense to me, one, it was like, it came in factions because, you know, down in Mississippi, Mississippi is like 94% private. Right. Right?
Jared Henson:Oh, yeah.
Lake Pickle:But still, like, I grew up hunting on public like, the first time I ever went turkey hunting in my life, was on public land. The first duck hunt I mean, I I never duck hunted on private until I was in my twenties. And so I knew public land was there. I knew it was accessible. First time I traveled out West, the Western United States, I I realized how much more access there is out
Jared Henson:there. Yes.
Lake Pickle:And then to expand that even further, traveling outside of the country, knowing people that, you know, I I have I have good friends that live here now that are from South Africa. I've I've talked to folks that are from New Zealand, you know, from Europe, and they're like, man, y'all don't know what y'all have here. And that's that's that's sad. Is. Yeah.
Jared Henson:It really is. And that's something that kinda I wanted, I mean, to talk about is that if that luxury is what sets us apart, it's one of those things that's just Yeah. It's a national treasure.
Lake Pickle:Treasure. America's greatest idea? It is. It is. Yeah.
Jared Henson:Thanks, Teddy.
Lake Pickle:Yeah. Thousands, thank you, man. Yeah. Talking about how all that worked out and you like the foresight that that dude had, which like teaser here talking about Backwoods University. It's not coming anytime soon, but I'm planning on doing a full look into Teddy Roosevelt and Oh, that would be great.
Lake Pickle:And how, you know, how all that came to be. Because a lot of us, you know, a lot of us accept like having kind of like a surface level knowledge about stuff, and myself Yeah. Included. Yeah. So a lot of people know Teddy Roosevelt had a lot to do with establishing public lands, but that's where it stops, you know.
Jared Henson:He was a huge naturalist too. Like, he had birds, he loved to bird watch.
Lake Pickle:So he
Jared Henson:wasn't just a hunter, mean, he loved to hunt. Mhmm. You can tell that from the history and and the pictures that you see of him, but he loved all things outdoors.
Lake Pickle:Yeah. Yeah. And and what he left for us, man, and and why, you know, On X is such a such a strong hunting access and public land advocate is like, man, one thing for me personally is like public land's kinda like the great equalizer. It is. You know?
Lake Pickle:Like, you could run into somebody on public land that has more money than the beach has sand. You may run into somebody on public land that, you know, is working paycheck to paycheck. It doesn't matter out there. It doesn't. And they're all in
Jared Henson:it for the same reason.
Lake Pickle:And that that's the beauty of it to me. You know? And one another part about my story, I got to spend I I spent better part of a decade, nine years, some change working for Primos.
Jared Henson:Right. That was the first time I had heard your name. Yeah. I was watching Primos, and and so I grew up watching that.
Lake Pickle:Yeah. And so I'd had some folks I still have folks ask me this to this day. They're like they'll or they'll be like, man, you still kick around on public or, you know, like, man, you you probably haven't done that in a while. I'm like, bro, I hunt public every year. Yeah.
Lake Pickle:Not because I'm trying to prove anything, I just love to do it. Like And there's some spots
Jared Henson:that have those memories and and all that. You know? Yeah. And More than what you shoot.
Lake Pickle:And and some of that is, like, there is, like, a cool factor of it or, like, a just or part of the game rather is it's like some of the spots that you're saying that that may be sentimental to me, anybody else can go there if they
Jared Henson:find Right. Right?
Lake Pickle:And there's beauty in that. There is. Yeah.
Jared Henson:Put the work in, you can go find something. You can make your own memories there.
Lake Pickle:Yeah. Yeah.
Jared Henson:When you went, you've got a little bit of a wildlife kind of background too. Right? Yep. Yep. So what's your history there?
Lake Pickle:Yeah. So I mean, I knew I wanted to do like, when I was a kid, I I wanted to go I'd tell my kid I'd tell my parents, I wanna grow up and work for Primos. That's what I wanna do. But even, you know, was like going to college and stuff and like just the idea, like, if by chance didn't work out and my parents were real big on me getting a degree, I wanted to go school for something that I, you know, cared about. And so I went to Mississippi State, and I was a wildlife, fisheries, and aquaculture science student.
Lake Pickle:Well, yeah, man. I mean, it's like Mississippi State's a fantastic
Jared Henson:school for them.
Lake Pickle:Oh, they they are. Yeah. I mean, I was part of the DU chapter there when I was a student and all that all that fun stuff. And but the what I tell guys is, you know, because folks will ask me now, they're like, they're at you know, that that Noah went to a wildlife school at Mississippi State. They asked me how it was.
Lake Pickle:I'm like, man, when I was in high school, I never could care too much about diagramming a sentence or figuring out what x solved for, but when they were trying to say, hey, identify that plant, that's what deer or a duck likes to eat, I'm like, I can get down
Jared Henson:with that, you know. Yeah. Well and I had some of that as well. So I've got my degrees are in biology, but with wildlife slant on everything. Yeah.
Jared Henson:And it was kinda funny because that's how I actually got to where I could do the math.
Lake Pickle:Oh, yeah? Was you had to
Jared Henson:put it in, a population ecology question or something like that and, like, make me care about it. Right. And then I was like, oh, yeah. No. I'm interested in this.
Jared Henson:Yeah. Oh, I can do that if it if you put it in context. Yeah.
Lake Pickle:If those high school algebra equations were like, solve for the number of mattered green heads. It would have worked in in our schools for sure. Yeah. Yeah. No.
Lake Pickle:But, man, I had I I loved my time at Mississippi State. I still I talked to some of my professors still, and, you know, like, doctor Brian Davis still works at Mississippi State.
Jared Henson:Oh, yeah.
Lake Pickle:Puts out a lot of really good interesting research. And I
Jared Henson:know Brian pretty well, and, like, he is a great guy. Oh, He's just one of the most genuine guys, but super smart, laid back, but he's, like, he's got that, like, underlying, like, just base knowledge. Just, like, man, that guy knows a lot.
Lake Pickle:He does. Yeah. I I still remember, man, we did some I mean, we I was I took his waterfowl management class just for selfish reasons more than anything, really. It was an elective that I could take, and I was like, yeah, I wanna do that. But we got to go on a class.
Lake Pickle:I mean, was basically a field trip, but we got to go out to York Woods. Oh, yeah. And, you know, from spending my whole the first time I duck hunted, I was I I didn't duck hunt until I was a sophomore in high school. That's when that family took me. But, you know, all of it was on public and stuff, and going out there to York Woods and seeing that place
Jared Henson:That's different.
Lake Pickle:And the yeah.
Jared Henson:That's different. Yes. I hear you. Brian brings his students to to NHQ pretty regularly. He'll bring some classes up there, and I'll get to give them a talk on kinda what DU actually does.
Lake Pickle:Yeah.
Jared Henson:Alright. Because that's something people don't really actually see. Right? Yeah. Everybody knows the banquet system.
Jared Henson:Yeah. Everybody knows we raise money. Everybody knows we got a big logo with a duck head on it. Mhmm. But not a lot of people actually understand what DU actually does
Lake Pickle:Yeah.
Jared Henson:On the conservation side. What are we doing?
Lake Pickle:So Well, to your point there, one of the coolest things that or one of, you know, cooler features that we've gotten to put in the app in the last couple years is that Ducks Unlimited layer. Well, and we're really, really glad we got to partner with that, and
Jared Henson:that became really relevant recently. Right? You know, a lot of awareness around public lands. That's why we're talking about it today, and people don't realize that DU works on public land. Historically, like, 40% of the work we have done A lot of it.
Jared Henson:Yeah. Been on public land. Yeah. Yeah. I think there are 3,800 dots on that layer, and each dot represents a separate public land project.
Lake Pickle:Yeah. So for y'all, look. If you if because this happened it happened at the show, you know, because we had on at the show at the booth, we have the big screen where you could see the app, and we had the DU layer pulled up, and folks were like, oh, you know, go to your OnX app. The bottom left hand corner, you'll see layers. You hit that button.
Lake Pickle:You scroll up until you see a subfolder that says land and access. You click on that and scroll down, you'll see the Ducks Unlimited layer. You flip that thing on and every project that wetlands restoration we've done
Jared Henson:on public land will pop up. Yeah. And it's crazy the amount of different types of projects. Yeah. And I don't know if you got into that much on on through that layer, but Nick Smith is one of our main GIS Mhmm.
Jared Henson:Guys, and he's a wizard. Yeah. Must be
Lake Pickle:if he did all that.
Jared Henson:But we pulled all that together, and I was like, Nick, what kind of projects are you talking about? He's like, oh, we did a lot. A lot of stuff. So it's a lot of stuff that's like if a state or federal partner is like, hey, we need new water control structures. They can hire at DU, we will help them fundraise for that and help them find match money, write NACA grants to get the funds for it, and then all that, we got the engineering and the construction crews to come in and actually help put in that infrastructure, whatever's needed.
Jared Henson:We also do easements, grassland easements, one of our big partners, our U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service. We we help hold all the easements on and help them acquire, guess, Fish and Wildlife Service holds the easements, but those waterfowl production area easements up in the Dakotas?
Lake Pickle:Oh, I'm
Jared Henson:I'm I'm familiar. I mean, DU plays a big role in touching those and trying to help facilitate that. Yeah. And one of the other ones I thought was pretty cool is that DU moves faster than state and federal governments, if you would have believed that. Yeah.
Jared Henson:We help with acquisitions. Yeah. Alright. Because real estate market, you've seen it.
Lake Pickle:I know it. It goes fast.
Jared Henson:It does. And so when a federal state partner wants to do an acquisition or something like that and they wanna add to that public land, if they can't move fast enough, they'll call on to you to try and help facilitate that, pull that land in, and then we will move that land to them when they get through all the red tape. Mhmm. And so all kinds of different stuff.
Lake Pickle:Yeah.
Jared Henson:And some pretty famous ones. Some local ones around here, we've done a huge enhancement project over in Arkansas that just finished up in the past couple years with Hurricane Lake. Yep. I don't know if you saw that big water control structure they put in over there.
Lake Pickle:I've seen pictures.
Jared Henson:$2,000,000 structure.
Lake Pickle:Yeah. And that's they like, talking about it, man, it's like one one thing that was cool for us is, you know, we found out that a lot of folks got use out of that feature simply because a lot
Jared Henson:not all, not all, but a lot
Lake Pickle:of those those areas that pop up with that DU layer are open to hunting. Okay. And so, like, folks would be, like, traveling and they're going to freelance hunt somewhere, and they put that layer on and they go, oh, you know, there's been some wetlands restoration
Jared Henson:right there. That's part of what DU does. Right? People think that we've we've moved away from that. No.
Jared Henson:We've we are still grounded in our waterfowl hunting heritage.
Lake Pickle:You know?
Jared Henson:Well If you walk around the show today, it's it's pretty easy to see.
Lake Pickle:You know? And that's and that's so cool to me, man, because, like, I'm I'm everybody knows, everybody at this show primarily is is all about wildlife conservation. But one thing that goes hand in hand with being about wildlife conservation is making it known, like like making people aware of the amount of conservation work that's being done. That's it. And I that's one of the functionalities of that layer that I that I love because, I mean, anybody can go and flip that on and go, oh, man.
Lake Pickle:Look at all this that's happening, like, right around me.
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Jared Henson:I think there's two places on that map that you're more than a 150 miles from a DU project, and one of them is in Utah. Are you still In the desert. That's right. Everything else, with the with the exception of that and one other spot, I think you're within 75 miles of a DU project on public land. That's a pretty crazy stat.
Jared Henson:So, no, yes, we work in the Prairies. That's where most of our money goes. A lot of it goes, right? But that's where that's where we're gonna impact duck populations. The science tells us that's where we impact duck populations.
Lake Pickle:It's where ducks come from.
Jared Henson:But if you flip on a a layer in Louisiana Yeah. And Arkansas
Lake Pickle:Yeah.
Jared Henson:And Oklahoma, you're gonna see those duck heads pop up everywhere too.
Lake Pickle:Yeah. Yeah. So if you haven't checked that lair out yet, it is a it's a nifty one.
Jared Henson:You should. Look at it and On X, if you're not if you don't have an On X membership, like, man, it is it is one of the most incredible tools I've added to my repertoire in a duck as a duck hunter, and I hunt I hunt, like, refuge ground in Arkansas. Yeah. It's big. Yeah.
Jared Henson:It's real big. I mean, I make 12 mile boat runs on a consistent basis. That's the norm.
Lake Pickle:Yeah.
Jared Henson:Having that offline feature Yeah. The GPS feature, being able to drop pins, links to river gauges Mhmm. Like, all that stuff is is something I'm using every day. Yeah. And so it's a really, really handy tool.
Jared Henson:So.
Lake Pickle:Yeah. Yeah. If y'all subscribe today
Jared Henson:saying no.
Lake Pickle:If you subscribe today, Jared will pay for it for it himself.
Jared Henson:I did not say that. I did not say that. I do work for a nonprofit. Yeah.
Lake Pickle:No, man. But it is we love to hear hear that people are using it. We love hearing stories about it. I tell folks all the time, like, one of the more popular features among the the duck hunter, especially the, you know, the pilot land duck hunter that's taken mile long you know, 12 mile or half mile long boat rides is, you know, turning on it's just that tracker feature, man. It's simply because it's I'm like sure you heard stories too.
Lake Pickle:I had dude, when I was in junior college, me and a buddy of mine, there was a there was a big piece of big national forest at home that we used to hunt. River got up, creek got outside its banks, we knew of new water. We took off out in there. We was gonna scout. We was gonna find ducks.
Lake Pickle:We got lost as last year's Easter egg, and this is pre on x. Yes. And, like, now you wouldn't even it wouldn't even be an issue. You know? Now you just go, oh, you know, and then just get back in the channel and go back to the ramp.
Jared Henson:And when you get in some of those big areas and, you know, a lot of these stories obviously are coming from the South with some of the big river systems and things. But I'll take a cut. Right? And I can get my boat in through this cut. Mhmm.
Jared Henson:You can't get out unless you go back through that cut. Mhmm. And if you don't lay a track down, sometimes it's hard to find that cut again. Yeah. And so it's been a handy feature.
Lake Pickle:In some ways, it makes you even respect more of the old timers that could just do that stuff.
Jared Henson:That was my grandfather. He had a bubble compass. Bubble compass pinned to his his wader strap.
Lake Pickle:And just
Jared Henson:He just he he was running a little 15 horse Evinrude on a 16 foot little Mhmm. Waco, and he'd run that thing way up in the middle of all them bottoms. I mean, three, four miles off of a channel. Yeah. Yeah.
Jared Henson:And he's like, back then, though, you could get away from people by doing that.
Jared Henson:So well, where's your favorite place to duck hunt? I'm gonna ask you that.
Lake Pickle:Man, honestly, like, with the Primo's ears and the On X stuff, I've hunted a lot of things in a lot of places in, you know, in the country. With ducks, I've primarily been down here, man. Really? I I've I've hunted, like, like, if I'm thinking wrong, the only, like, outside of the Southeast region that I've done some serious duck hunt has been in Eastern Montana. And so, man, I I'm a when it comes to hunting stuff, you know, like, sentimental value, like, I mean, of course, it would be tough to beat some flooded timber in Arkansas, but I love there's a particular piece of public that I dare not name while I'm talking on here that's at home.
Lake Pickle:Yeah. Yeah. Yep. That it it would it it it be within two miles of where I was telling you I shot that first duck. Right.
Lake Pickle:Yep. I would go right back there.
Jared Henson:Oh, yeah. I hear you.
Lake Pickle:I just it's just in there. That's it? You know what I mean?
Jared Henson:Yep. I did a a podcast. It's been six, eight months ago with with RonQuest, and we were talking about running the river and stuff like that. It was really funny because he and I were, like, talking about stuff. I'm like, I'm not gonna say anything, like, where, but he and I were like, I know I know where
Lake Pickle:you are. I know what you're
Jared Henson:talking about. I know where. Yeah. I know.
Lake Pickle:And and and I tell you another place that's and I can say where this one is because at at Primo's, we had we had this property that was right on the Mississippi River Yeah. That we call it Cottonmouth. And that place, man, like
Jared Henson:Well, it's kinda isn't it even in three states or something
Lake Pickle:like that? Is. Yeah.
Jared Henson:I just picked that up from here in the like,
Lake Pickle:in the story. Oh, no. It's a secret. Yeah.
Jared Henson:It's We're hunting Arkansas today. We're hunting Louisiana tomorrow and and Mississippi this afternoon or something.
Lake Pickle:Yeah. Yeah.
Jared Henson:That was really cool.
Lake Pickle:That's as spoiled as I ever got on Yeah. On ducks was at that
Jared Henson:was at that place. Imagine.
Lake Pickle:But we had a lot of fun, man. Yeah. That that place. But, yeah, just man, I love the Mississippi Flyaway. I love the Mississippi Delta.
Lake Pickle:Yeah. It can be tough. We know that.
Jared Henson:100%.
Lake Pickle:Anywhere can be tough on the right. You know what I mean? But I I I love it.
Jared Henson:Yeah. I mean, that's for me, it's it's like, I wanna be standing by a tree. Yeah. And I need one bunch of mallards. I don't need a bunch.
Jared Henson:I just need one bunch Yeah. To do it right and and fan and put that show on, a little sunlight gleaming on them. It almost gets to be a religious experience. So
Lake Pickle:I was telling you know, because there were some guys that of the guys in the booth, you know, the duck hunters, but being from something out west and, you know, north of here, you know, they hadn't done any flooded timber stuff, which obviously gets a lot of the attention,
Jared Henson:a lot of
Lake Pickle:the a lot of the romance for good reason. And I was like, boys, I'm just telling you, there's a reason it gets hyped up. You know?
Jared Henson:When it's right, it's gonna be incredible. It can get busy though.
Lake Pickle:I mean
Jared Henson:Oh, yeah. I mean, people wanna go see it. So if you get those public land spots, right, I mean, that's where doing your homework. I'm not gonna tell you to go drive around everywhere and scout. Don't do that.
Jared Henson:Do some good e scouting, figure out some stuff, talk to some locals, try and figure out a game plan, do what minimal scouting you need to do. There's no need to run a boat through public land all day
Lake Pickle:for No.
Jared Henson:A day. Please don't do that. No. That's not good for the resource. East Scout, man.
Jared Henson:East Scout. That's what I'm saying. East your homework. Go look at those water gauges. Go figure out what that water looks like.
Jared Henson:That can help so much, and that can really shorten your scout times and also will keep you from running birds out of areas if you do find some.
Lake Pickle:Yeah. Like yeah. They I mean, like, e scouting, knowing where you're I mean, just marking your access points. Yep. Like, water levels are huge.
Lake Pickle:Looking at your weather forecast on there is huge. Yes. Set one thing that like, probably the most underutilized thing going, like, within the app usage, and this is just in, like, spots that you know you're hunting, But there's a feature when you drop a waypoint, you can set it's called optimal wind. Right? Yep.
Lake Pickle:So, like, you know, guys like I don't know. But guys like you probably, like, even in public, like, you've got some certain spots that you know you go. Oh, yeah. Right? And you can go and set your win to where, like, alright, this hole hunt's best on this one.
Lake Pickle:It
Jared Henson:does. Right.
Lake Pickle:And you can you know, and looking at those calendars and knowing where your your best chances of success are gonna be, and it just cuts down your decision making and and all that stuff.
Jared Henson:Well, you can also visualize it too. Yeah. Right? Well, that's the thing. I put it in the notes on the waypoint, and I use the optimal wind on my deer stands.
Lake Pickle:Yeah.
Jared Henson:And like I have that mapped out, but I don't have it on my duck holes. Now I'm like, why am not doing that?
Lake Pickle:Yeah. Because what's well, because everyone everyone links that to being a Yeah. A whitetail feature because, know, alright, I want a north wind so it's blowing in my face. We're like, well, I wanted a south wind when I'm duck hunting, know, in this spot because I want it blowing right here, you know, but or you know what I mean? But, yeah, I set especially on, like, the my camp at home, like, every every blind, I've got optimal winds set up for those blinds to know what what's best set.
Jared Henson:Look at it quick.
Lake Pickle:Yeah. That's Yeah.
Jared Henson:Tip. Good tip. Well, what other features do y'all have kind of on the horizon?
Lake Pickle:The biggest like, so one of the newest ones we've got is collaborative folders, and folks have been asking for that for a while. That's cool. Yeah. And so what that means is is, like, I could take like, let's say, you know, a certain group of buddies, you know, some folks have that select four or five guys that they share information with. Right?
Lake Pickle:And on a particular piece of property, you know, public, whatever it is, and they've got a couple holes marked, couple of tracks in and out of there marked, whatever. They can take all of those, those waypoints, those tracks, they can put it in a folder, in a a collaborative folder, and they can add just the four of them to it. That's awesome. And all of them can go and edit it. They can add more stuff to it.
Lake Pickle:Like, like, you can work in that that folder as a team.
Jared Henson:That's way easier than downloading a folder, sending a folder to somebody else. They open it, and then you're swapping waypoints back and forth. Yeah. Yeah.
Lake Pickle:Yeah. We're trying to make that a more user friendly process. That's all that's what we're always trying to do is just make stuff more efficient.
Jared Henson:And y'all do. Y'all do a fantastic job with that. So Yeah.
Lake Pickle:Well, that's the engineers. That ain't me. I'm a they're good at it.
Jared Henson:But it's you got good feedback. Right? You know what people are asking for. You're listening. That's Yeah.
Jared Henson:That's cool.
Lake Pickle:Yeah. Lidar. We've got lidar now. Do you? Yes.
Lake Pickle:As of, like like, it's it's rolling out right now. Like, there was
Jared Henson:That's game changer if you're in flat land.
Lake Pickle:Yeah. And that's was telling folks because, you know, we have that big display screen at the booth, and I would take them over to the mountains first because I'm like, here's the most obvious way I can show you what LIDAR is. But, yeah, in the flatland, when you can like, the tiniest little Well,
Jared Henson:I mean, most topographic maps are what, 10 foot elevations? Yep. And so and and you're in an area where six inches makes a difference in flat ground.
Lake Pickle:Right. Especially in that delta.
Jared Henson:Yeah.
Lake Pickle:And so, yeah, like, LIDAR, for those of y'all that don't know what I was telling folks, it's like LIDAR is you you don't one, you don't some folks are like, I don't know how to read topo. You don't have to know how to read topo to read a lidar map. And two, lidar will show terrain changes that topography maps cannot. It's really really It's cool. Way more detailed.
Lake Pickle:Yeah.
Jared Henson:Yeah. It's what all the farmers are using now to really understand their ag systems and their fields. You can use it on private ground to really understand how to, if you wanna do a new impoundment or you wanna try and do stuff like that, it's fantastic for doing management plans. And that's something else that I do wanna bring you back at some point, do a little more deep dive on that, but wait till we talked about that. On X is awesome if you're a lane manager.
Lake Pickle:I know, yeah. It gets overlooked for that. Yeah.
Jared Henson:Like that, the different resources and being able to draw polygons and map things, I mean, that's a different whole other thing where
Lake Pickle:Yeah. I mean D cell. Yeah, man. I mean, like, some like, camp I got at home, like, I have all the roads mapped. Like, you you can map out all your impoundments, you know, how much acreage it is.
Lake Pickle:You can do there's so much stuff you can do with it.
Jared Henson:Yeah. It's super Yeah. Super handy.
Lake Pickle:Yeah.
Jared Henson:Well, and we've got a big well, it's came on the past few years, but you're a corporate partner now Yeah. With DU. And so there's gonna be some opportunities coming to y'all in local banquets and things like that. And, I don't know if you wanna try and tease any of that or talk about it.
Lake Pickle:But Yeah. Well, I mean, I know the the deal we're doing with the the calendar program. Right. And we're giving away an elite membership, like a year elite membership, like every day. That's amazing.
Lake Pickle:That. Yeah. And so there's we're doing that. And then some of it, I just don't like, I just we don't have enough information yet for me to put it out there, but there's some
Jared Henson:some good stuff. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. I just heard the little the got a little bit of back behind the scenes stuff, talk about that, but also saw the snippet y'all launched before DUX kinda talking about that, and I was excited about that partnership.
Jared Henson:Yeah. I think that something's gonna go Yeah. Go great. They're our digital mapping partner.
Lake Pickle:Just made too much sense, man. It works. Yeah.
Jared Henson:I mean, it works well. It's like I said, it's it's a resource everybody's using. Yeah. Mission alignment's great. Y'all are all over that.
Jared Henson:You know, the conservation side, the access side, getting people outdoors, all that stuff we have to have, we need that. Yeah.
Lake Pickle:We I mean, we care about conservation, we care about wildlife, we care about access. Yeah. It's what we care about. Y'all do too.
Jared Henson:That's why it works so well. Yeah. That's it. Well, Blake, we're we're kinda gonna wrap up, I think, a little early. But Okay.
Jared Henson:Do you have any closing remarks or anything else you really wanna try and get out or say or since we got people on here?
Lake Pickle:Man, I think, one, if you were on the fence, you've never been to one of these expos and you enjoy the outdoors, you enjoy the do you enjoy duck hunting, goose hunting, whatever, this is a this is a really fun show. Like, I brought my wife to this show, the guys at at the booth, like, just have had a fantastic time. The venue is nice. There's so many cool vendors here, so many cool brands. And, man, we're just excited to be partnered up with Ducks Unlimited.
Lake Pickle:We yeah. We're we're just so parallel on what we're trying to do. And
Jared Henson:Well, thank you. And and and thank you for allowing us to show our impact on the landscape with y'all. Like, that's been a huge a huge asset to us, and we go sit down and we talk to people. Yeah. And they were like, well, where do you actually do work?
Jared Henson:I'm like, well
Lake Pickle:I can show you. I can show you. I can show you quick.
Jared Henson:And like and well, you're working on private ground.
Lake Pickle:Yeah.
Jared Henson:You know, we get that a lot, and we do work on private ground. Don't get wrong. 80 to 90% of the duck habitat in North America is on private ground.
Lake Pickle:Well, I mean, again, Mississippi is 94. We we tell folks all the time. It's like Mississippi I I I use that example because that's where I'm from. Mississippi is like 94% right. If we only did wildlife, you know, wildlife land management type stuff on public ground, we would be affecting 6% of It's not enough to have an
Jared Henson:impact. Yeah. Right.
Lake Pickle:So it's like, I I I love public
VO:Gentlemen, welcome.
Lake Pickle:I love public land.
Jared Henson:25
Lake Pickle:But it takes both.
Jared Henson:It does. And that public land, one of the big things I do I was gonna mention earlier is that food court there is
VO:Marty Roberts was Sporting Life
Jared Henson:With public lands, especially at the refuge systems and some of those big national forest tracks, those are, like those that's ground zero for wildlife. Right? Those are the safe places. That's and then we try and build around it, right, to build habitat. So that's the core of a lot of our wildlife management.
Lake Pickle:Yeah.
Jared Henson:In The US, is trying to add to those well known public land places that provide that base layer and foundation for habitat, especially like migratory birds that are going up and down the entire continent. Yeah. Without that, kinda SOL.
Lake Pickle:Yeah. Well, other thing is like I tell folks all the time is like, there ain't a duck, goose, deer, turkey, quail that knows what a property line is.
Jared Henson:Not at all. Not at all. We're bound by them. Yeah. But they yeah.
Jared Henson:You gotta be able to work across it. That's why we have the EU Canada and the EU Mexico. Right. Right? It's because birds fly across borders.
Jared Henson:Yeah. They don't notice them. So
Lake Pickle:I don't think they care.
Jared Henson:No. They don't. If I could go to Mexico and hang out when it's cold out here, I probably would too.
Lake Pickle:You'd migrate.
Jared Henson:Yeah. Man, look at me. I'll be a snowbird. Yeah. Well, like, I wanna thank you so much for joining in today.
Jared Henson:Thank you so much for for working with us and the partnership, and thank y'all for everything y'all do for conservation and, education and the public.
Lake Pickle:Yeah. Likewise, man. Likewise, man. Once again, we're just we're happy to be here, happy to be a part.
Jared Henson:Oh, awesome. Well, thank you all for listening in. I've gotta give a quick shout out to our podcast producer over here, Chris Isaac, and then, Clay Baird, who's who's holding down the fort too as well. So thanks for tuning in, and next year, y'all better be at DUX. Come see mister Lake Fickle.
Jared Henson:Thank you so much for joining me, Lake.
Lake Pickle:Yep. Happy to be here.
VO:Thank you for listening to the DU podcast, sponsored by Purina Pro Plan, the official performance dog food of Ducks Unlimited. Purina Pro Plan, always advancing. Also proudly sponsored by Bird Dog Whiskey and Cocktails. Whether you're winding down with your best friend or celebrating with your favorite crew, Bird Dog brings award winning flavor to every moment. Enjoy responsibly.
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