Inside Split Reed: Public Land Ducks, Community & Storytelling (Ep 806)

0:00North Dakota is where great waterfowl hunts begin. With 2.4 million breeding ducks recorded in the 2026 spring survey, a fall flight expected to be 9% higher than last year, and more than 1 million acres of public hunting access, it's a hunter's paradise. Learn more and plan your trip at hello-n-d.com. The DU podcast is proudly sponsored by Weatherby. When every shot counts, trust the shotguns built to perform. Weatherby's sorex and element shotguns are endurance tested and field proven, delivering the reliability hunter's demand from opening day to the final flight. Whether you're chasing ducks, geese, or upland birds, Weatherby has a shotgun ready for the hunt. Visit weatherby.com to learn more. I think Zach talked about walking 90 miles to celebrate the use 90th anniversary. I would do it. We could do a walk from Mount Hood to the coast in Oregon.

1:00You heard it here for you heard it. I was about to say you heard it here. You write it down. I'll do it. You're tuned into the Ducks Unlimited podcast. Conserving wetlands, restoring habitat, and working to fill the skies with waterfowl today, tomorrow, and forever. From field-tested hunting insights to the biggest conservation winds across North America, this is your front row seat to wetlands conservation in action. The DU podcast is proudly sponsored by Bird Dog Whisky in cocktails. Whether you're wrapping up a hunt with your best friend or kicking back with your crew, Bird Dog brings award-wining flavor to every moment. Enjoy responsibly. All right, welcome back. We have an exciting last but not the least. So we have the guys from Split Read, Brennan. That's right. Zach and Max, Max with us, and we're excited for this final episode of day one

2:09here in the Duck Den. And this is going to be fun. So check, check. Because everywhere you all go is fun. I mean, you guys are like a party. I mean, we've been known to have a good time. It's split reads around, you know, we've been known to have a good time. I did have to, before we dive way off into this, I do have to ask, do you really sleep on the floor? I've slept on the floor in quite a few places. I've slept in some sketchy areas in my days, boat ramps, truck stops, which is correct. That is on the floor. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, Jim Bo, I posted an Instagram story the other day. I've got a, I'm anti-bed frame. I'm, I'm, I'm pro, dude room. So bet on the floor. It's like the most dude thing I could think of. No side table. I've got, instead of a dresser, I just got a wire rack from Costco. I'm just trying to dude Max and my current state of life. Do you know Austin Stapleton? I do know Austin Stapleton. You and Austin Stapleton would get along great. He seems like a guy that likes to do. He's a dude. Yeah.

3:09He's a speaking of Austin Stapleton. He just walked in here. That's crazy. I just said you and Zach are a lot of like, you know, like dude, dude, he's sleeping on the floor right now. Yeah. I'm anti bed frame. No bed frame. Just mattress on the floor. No dresser. Just a dude. I said, do you know Austin Stapleton? And then you walked in. It's weird. You are the man. Yes. Ladies and gentlemen, Austin Stapleton. Oh, that's awesome. It was a great, it was a hilarious video. I guess you all were testing mics. Yeah, I was testing out my microphone and I was like, I got my dog there. I got to see how the audio is. And so I just interviewed my dog. And the mic smells a little bit now. So sorry to everybody we've interviewed today if it smells like dogs mouths. But, you know, could be mine could be hers. You're at a waterfowl show. So let's talk about what is split read. Like what is, what's the genesis? I'm a pass this one to our oldest team member here, Brendan, who's been with split read the longest. Yeah, for sure. I mean, first and foremost, I think split read is, you know, a digital waterfowl publication, you know, on our website, social media and stuff like that.

4:09But I feel like at the core of it, it's a community. And that's something we've always kind of strived to. I mean, there's so many amazing and credible little niches within, you know, the waterfowl space and conservation space. You know, there's all sorts of cool stuff. You have training and dogs and, you know, guns and decoy makers, call makers. People with really cool stories, you know, you're every day hunter. And that's something that we've always wanted to try and push forward is, you know, the storytelling of, you know, the waterfowl community, regardless of, you know, how attached you are to it or how attached to one particular part of it. It's an incredible community to be a part of. And we're, you know, super grateful in that we get to work with a bunch of cool partners within that space, you know, such as ducks and limited and, you know, a bunch of different brand partners, didn't to do really cool projects on, you know, the media front. You know, we do work with a lot of partners doing different media projects, you know, helping people bring products to markets.

5:11But like I said, you know, the core part of it and something that, you know, is really important to me and a lot of our team is, you know, the community side of it. And just be able to help be a voice for people in the waterfowl space, you know, a voice for conservation issues, you know, new gear and stuff like that. That's coming out and just all the incredible stuff that this community holds. Yeah. And, you know, my first interaction or my first taste or, you know, appreciation was when y'all did your first eye cast. The new gear at eye cast was that two years ago, three years ago? Yeah. From our sister publication, Fly Lords. So we've got what's cool about us. The Jol, did you all reach it? Yeah, we showed that to you guys in terms of like proof of concepts. And so it's like, well, our sister company, like they're pretty much like copy and paste what we do on the other side of the fly fishing industry. I think that the waterfowl space and the fly fishing space are very similar in ways that like we care a lot about the things that we are chasing.

6:11Fly fishermen are extremely, you know, passionate about the fish that they're chasing. They're caring about conservation duck hunters the same way. Yeah. So different community events, whether it's eye cast or it's ducks, like, you know, it's important to show off those events like that. Welcome to the old timer minute sponsored by old timer knives. All right. So when I was a kid, which a lot of people know about Jim Kennedy, he's a major donor of ducks and limited. He's done so much for DU. But when I was a kid, he actually owns Yorkwoods now. But when I was a kid, we actually had a lease on Yorkwoods before Kennedy came part of that. And they actually, I think they still call it. It's called the Ring of Fire is a blind that is in a circle of cypress trees out in the middle of a field. And it was the most fun blind to hunt because the way the ducks came in, they came in just perfectly. Like there was the easiest shot you could get off those ducks. But it was, it is beautiful out there. But by far, the Ring of Fire is my favorite place that I've ever hunted.

7:18Visit the old timer dot com. What y'all did here last year was incredible. And I think that, you know, what y'all bring to the table is, is that voice, right? And so many people in here, you know, in order to have a community, you got to have the houses. Right? So the vendors kind of make up the houses here. And y'all are telling the story. I was going to say the homeowner association, but that would be right. Most people don't like their HOA. But y'all are the community. Y'all are what make everybody here and kind of speak to every other waterfowl. And so it's an awesome platform. And we love working with y'all and have enjoyed this kind of last two years, 18 months, and continue to do more. And so it's a lot of fun. And was that y'all's first time at headquarters the other day? That was. It was super sweet to see. Unfortunately, Brendan got the laid in Denver and had to stay the night on a cot. So he couldn't make it to the headquarters of Max and I had a great time. We got to see all the cool things, big whoop. You got to see that. The giant book in your guys' library that's, I laid it open and laid next to it.

8:21And it's almost as big as me. And I'm 5'11 and a half. So it's almost 5'11 and a half. That's awesome. Well, yeah, you know, we were super, super stoked. And you know, it's cool is you got to see it kind of a different side of ducks unlimited in that headquarters. And most people don't realize that to me, it's kind of, I take it for granted, right? I walk through the doors all the time. But it's a, it's a, there's a lot of history in there. And it's kind of it's got a museum mask. I mean, Max, what do you think? Yeah, I mean, I thought it was great just seeing like every little part of ducks limited that like, like, like, a greater organization. You don't see it from the outside. Like just the team that goes into the day to day work. Really cool seeing all the old stamps. There's a lot of great heritage in there. Even things like, do you magazine seeing where that gets created? Super cool to see kind of how the magic has. Yes. I mean, that team starts every month from the blank slate, right? Obviously, I have an idea in their head, but it's definitely a blank slate of pulling all that content together.

9:24I love taking people to the studio, kind of the Markham's apartment, the podcast, like that this team Chris, I think, kind of runs that area back there, but you know, they're vision and what they do back there is just awesome. It's a fun place to kind of hang out. Yeah, we got to check out the duct in a little bit and like seeing all the cool older things that you guys have up there. And like production value that you guys like put all the effort and stuff like that into just having a cool place to hang out and chit chat. Hang out with all these different people is like, you know, it's a great place to foster conversation for sure back there. Absolutely. Did you see the metal goose bands when you were in there? No, I'm not. Amy didn't point those out. Good, good, good. Those are my my treasures back there. I don't know. Well, mentor of mine gave me, you know, these to put metal goose bands on next of geese. Then we did it for about two years and they realized that they were freezing to them.

10:25So they so one of the biologists that was a part of that project when they abandoned the location they were using to ban all these geese. The original biology he left them to the guys that were kind of studying under him. And one of our regional directors got the last 60 of them. So he had 60 goose bands left and throughout his career he's given a few out. And a year and a half away, but a year and a half ago he gave me 40, gave me his last 40 instead of passing these on to you to give to people that mean a lot to you. And so been been working. I guess I'm cooking up that I'm going to do with them. I think it's going to be made a lot to him, but it's a cool, real cool treasure and just seeing the history of banding because that was the original bands. So they're like stainless steel like neck collars. Yeah, yep, yep. And they didn't. So they would collapse someone their necks and whatever they were made out of.

11:27They were freezing like up under their necks like right under it. And so then they weren't moving and they were having trouble swallowing. So there was a lot of problems with them. And so they only did. I mean, I think they made 200 start because the number they started with. And like every, it looks like a letch will tape. It's all colored electrical tape. So there's some blue ones, black, yellow. But all of the numbers in the symbols on them obviously meant something. And each one of them looks like it was done with electrical tape. It's really, really neat. I'll send you all. I'll send you all one. Well, you all worked remote, but we can pass it around. I'll send. Yeah. I'll send it to one of y'all and y'all can check it out and put it up somewhere. Yeah, pretty cool. That'd be sweet. So like, what is what does split redo throughout the year besides the content? Like, I know y'all do amazing things. Okay, what does a year look like in the split read world? How does it bring that community together and tell the stories?

12:28Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of different media projects internally that we're working on. Zach is a host of one of them, Road Dog Tour, which is kind of like our YouTube series, video series. That's a really fun one that I think we get a show, the community. There's a lot of great media out there in films and shows about hunting and duck hunting. One of the things that I really love about Road Dog Tour and that I think resonates with our community is, you know, it's Zach in a couple of his buddies. And they just go hunting on public land and it's kind of just that public land hunter roots. You know, it's not overly produced. You know, obviously we have, you know, some nice equipment and stuff that we're filming on to, you know, have a high production quality value. But at the end of the day, you know, it's just a bunch of buddies going out there and hunting and, you know, not of it's scripted and not of it's, you know, we're not hunting with, with outpitters or anything. It's all just, you know, our team doing it ourselves and going out there and chasing the migration.

13:29And I think that's something that that's a project that, you know, we've been working on over the past three years. And as, you know, as far as media, that's something that I think, you know, we're really proud of. And something that we've seen a lot of folks enjoy it. Just, you know, kind of a return and a resurgence of, you know, not just ourselves, but a lot of people just, you know, just going to hunt. Like just, and it's just average, just kind of like run of the mill hunting and it's fun because it's, you know, Zach and his friends and yeah, it's great. It's raw and all that it is. Yeah. Yeah. People can relate to that. Whenever we came up with the series a couple of years ago, we were just sitting there and I googled me and they were like, maybe we should like, you know, we have this on our sister publication, fly alerts. They have this thing called fly shop tour. We're like, we need something like that for split read. I was like, well, I got a truck. I got a dog. If you guys give me a credit card, I can make something happen. And so somehow, some way I can advance everybody to start, let me travel around and just go hunting with my friends and it worked out pretty good and stayed in a lot of, it's, it's come such a long way.

14:35Like I've had Brendan helping me out with the whole entire thing the entire time in the first year. I was like, man, I'm sleeping in the loves truck stop. I'm showering here. I've been eating the ducks that I shoot and I'm stocking up on Campbell's chicken noodle soup and just, you know, living literally in the back of my pickup truck just chasing ducks because it's what I wanted to do. And it was so much fun. And then now luckily we're getting air B and B's and stuff like that and we're up and up some of the value. I'm still dirt bagging it as I like to say a lot of the time still, you know, it's hard for me not to want to just sleep in the back of my truck and eat gas station food. And the corn dogs have gone down. I was averaging two corn dogs a day on the first season. That was my sustenance getting me through and I gained about 30 pounds on the road the first season just between, you know, the beers, the corn dogs and just not making healthy decisions in terms of sleep and all that fun stuff. But we're coming a long way. We did camp starvation last year. Went on a diet halfway through because it was getting bad again, but it's a super fun series. Split read just gives me the reins just go out there and you know create stuff that I would want to watch and being able to go out there and just with a good group of dudes and like nothing's like overly, you know production values great, but it's not like we're not trying to push anything dramatic.

15:47We're just out there hunting having a good time and my favorite thing about it is, you know, growing up watching YouTube videos on hunting and stuff like that. That's how I learned to to waterfowl hunt was YouTube. I didn't grow up in a hunting family. Nobody in my family chase ducks is me and my cousin. We decided we wanted to do it. So it's like when I'm creating this series now, that's what I set out to do is like watch something that inspires someone younger that, hey, like I don't have a ton of crazy stuff to go do this, but I'm going to go out. I'm going to go somewhere public. Everything that I do can be replicated to some extent. And like I want to just inspire people to get out there, go hunting, especially like younger kids. Like that's my favorite thing. If I can inspire some little kid like me who didn't grow up hunting, but once you get into it, like, you know, learn the ropes. Like that's that's my goal the other day. It's just inspire people to get out there and hunt. It's a dying thing every single year. We hear more and more that hunting license sales are down less kids are hunting. And it's like I want to get inspired people. If I can post a cool video and get someone to get out there, go hunt like that's that's my goal. That's our goal. It's what we want to inspire people.

16:47Create a community that welcomes everybody into it. Like we're not trying to push anybody out. But so everything we do, we just want to inspire folks. Man, hey, say it a little bit louder so the people in the back can hear you say that again. Like my son who's running around here in an orange shadow in the way we went. But when he started hunting, I took him when he was three. I've got a picture and actually Brett Baker was a part of this. When my son was three, we dropped him off. We had a hunt and we dropped him off and and trip just rode around with me to drop him off. And that was his experience, you know, young. And then when he became four, I bought him a four 10. And when he was four years old, I gave him this four 10. I never forced him to load it, right? Never forced him to shoot it. Never did it. But he carried a gun like that. When he was five throughout the season, he got a little bit more comfortable. He shot it a few on the water. We went out one afternoon by ourselves. He got to set out the spread. He put five duck decoys out in a circle and he put a pulsator in the middle of him.

17:55And we had one Spoonie hen come and land right next to it. I mean, like really I didn't think we'd do anything. But he had one Spoonie hen land next to it. He shot it on the water, killed it, wounded it, dog chased it a long way. He brought it back. That was his first duck in the next season. We cannot practice a little bit more. I taught him how to shoot. I told him if you shoot one out of the air this year, I'll buy you a semi out of 20 gauge. Needless to didn't think that that was going to happen Thanksgiving weekend with my entire family, but he did. And so, but when we were hunting, it was just the two of us, right? And he saw the community of friends and my family hunting together. And he kept asking me, Dad, why can't I bring friends? What I want to bring friends? I want to get more people involved in sitting around a fire one night at our old camp. He said, Dad, I want to start a YouTube page to get more kids into hunting with us. And I was like, well, we're not going to start a YouTube page, which you can start an Instagram page. So he started an Instagram page called Duck Kids. And all he does is he and he talks on it. And I'm really bad with it because we only post during duck season. He keeps telling me, we posted something this year during Turkey season, but.

19:05Trips goal is to get more kids his age into duck hunting. And I'm probably, you know, I kind of probably failed him a little bit on that aspect because I don't post enough for him. And he's always asked me to but now my daughter's into it and she wants to post on there and and their whole thing is just to get more kids their age into duck hunting and into hunting in general. And they're both very passionate about, you know, my bro, my sons invited probably 500 people this weekend to this duck sex bone. He's like, Dad, it's they're getting to see it. Right. They're getting to see how much fun this is and this community is and it's just getting them here. Right. You get them here. They walk around. I mean, this is the who's who there's my daughter right there. This is the who's who of the industry. And man, people are nice. Right. Like the Martin's of the world. I mean, you can go broom by room, boot by booth. And there's somebody that we looked up to as kids. Yep. That's there that you can talk to about hunting. And it's just it's so inspiring. And I love that this is truly the kickoff because let's be honest tomorrow.

20:11I think today's the 31st kind of all-stract time. Yeah. Yeah. Today is tomorrow. We're one month from when we're pulling the trigger boys. Like it doesn't get any better. So what you just said resonated so well with me because watching kids walk through this door and watching them carry bags around here. Like if a kid really wants something here, they can go ask somebody is probably going to be given to them. Yeah. And y'all. The D.U. podcast is proudly sponsored by Weatherby when every shot counts. Trust the shotguns built to perform. Whether these sorenks and element shotguns are endurance tested and field proven delivering the reliability hunters demand from opening day to the final flight. Whether you're chasing ducks, geese or upland birds, Weatherby has a shotgun ready for the hunt. Visit weatherby.com to learn more. North Dakota is where great waterfowl hunts begin with 2.4 million breeding ducks recorded in the 2026 spring survey. A fall flight expected to be 9% higher than last year. And more than 1 million acres of public hunting access. It's a hunter's paradise.

21:17Learn more and plan your trip at hello-n-d.com. No, y'all spend a lot of time in this industry in this community and it's just inspiring and this thing inspires me more than anything. Stay tuned to the Ducks Unlimited podcast, sponsor by Bird Dog Whiskey after these messages. My favorite thing about waterfowl hunting and what I honestly latch onto the most and to the point where I wanted to work in this industry was just the amount of love that everybody has for the sport and how open everybody is like each other and making friends and making connections. I think no matter what hunt you go on or who it's associated with, it's those times that you might have a bad hunt out there in the field or a good hunt.

22:20You're coming back to a duck camp, you're coming back to a hotel, you're hanging out with people, you're having a good time. It just draws in so much community. Some of my best friends that I have in life I've made through hunting. I wouldn't have that. That's one of my favorite things. It's such a community-oriented sport especially in waterfowl specifically. You're there with groups of people, you're having fun. I think it's attractive to first time hunters where it's like, hey, I'm going to go make friends, I'm going to go on trips of people all over the country to go chase ducks and that's a very beautiful thing that I love about the sport of waterfowl that it just brings people together. It's an event like this where they're, you know, it's a hunting trip with some buddies or just like, I've met so many really good people that have now become lifelong friends just traveling around duck hunting and some like people that I would never have business big friends with. That's it. We talked about this earlier, we had Devlin, duck was on here. One of the things we said is from the outside perspective looking in, you think, man, the waterfowl community fights all the time, the waterfowl community fights all the time.

23:22It's a war brand. It's a brand war. But you all know, let's talk about some of these after parties and some of the things that happen after the shows. It's not. No, no, because when you, I mean, I don't care who's hosting the party and we're all a part of one tomorrow night. There's no, when you go in there, it's everybody in the industry is there. And it's, it's, it's, you know, there's no walls in here. There's no locked doors. It's a big open community. And it really is that way. It's some of the hottest brands on the market are here, but they're all hanging out, hug and hey man, good to see they travel together. And so it's really cool when, you know, this, this type of we can get together like this and be united. Definitely. And I think that people looking in on it would probably agree with what you said is, and a lot of my best friends, I've been in this industry now for 18 years and a lot of my best friends are in this industry. Yeah, a lot of the people that my kids see that are that are very good friends of mine or in this industry. And, you know, again, that that gives me hope to.

24:30Yeah, and when I'm like, I was, you know, telling all my friends back home, like how excited I am that like don't really understand like, you know, my job or like what I'm going to like, what are you most excited for about your trip? I'm like, Man, it's just like one big family reunion. And everybody gets back in the same room. It's like, you know, you haven't skipped a beat. It's like, hey man, how's it going? You know, you know, chit chat and it's like one giant family reunion where everybody comes together. It's so much fun and it's such a good time. I love community events like this. It's amazing. Well, how long have you been with split read? How long have you been in the industry? I started with split read in 2020 and that was actually my kind of first introduction into the industry. I ironically, I met friends in college and kind of like to what you guys were saying, I made a bunch of friends through water fell hunting and I my undergrad degree was in fish and wildlife management at the time. I got really into photography and in writing and that's kind of how I got linked up with split read back in the day was, you know, they needed some help on the editorial side and doing some content trips as a photographer.

25:39So, you know, the connections that I made with my buddies kind of helped me got get noticed as, you know, photographer just being able to travel and hunt with friends and shoot a lot of content, greasing out to kind of like the OG split read team and getting linked up with them. But I, this is pretty much the only place I've been in the industry has been with split read. Yeah. What about you? I've been with split read for just over two years now, been in the outdoor industry for probably five, six years. Originally, I was doing some other marketing stuff, PR stuff, enjoyed it, but I really wanted to join a brand or publication that had like we talked about community around it. So, I went in the opportunity to join split read came up, jumped on it and it's been a dream job just working with like minded individuals telling cool stories and getting to share what I love about the waterfowl community with everyone.

26:41You know, that's one of the things that when this kind of, you know, I know you were with a call company before split read and when this opportunity came about, what's been really cool is having, you know, like another arm of communication for DU. And what you all do and there's going to be some, you know, what y'all did leading up to the show, plus what we're going to do in the future. It's exciting to have, you know, some guys out there helping us tell the story, right? And as DU, as we move into our 90th anniversary next year, I think we're going to do some fun things. I think Zach talked about walking 90 miles to celebrate, do you use 90th anniversary? I would do it. We could do a walk from Mount Hood to the coast in Oregon. You heard it here for you heard it. I was about to say you heard it here. You write it down. I'll do it. I got to do the beer mile again, like I did for the DU dash. That was epic. That was epic. Like that was pretty fun.

27:43I mean, I had people texting me left and right, sending it to me left and right. I was like, do you know this guy? I was like, well, I did until he did that. But I'm held on. Let me make sure he's still alive. It's hard enough to run three miles. Now let's drinking beer between each mile. Yeah. A lot of beer, too. 16 ounce cans. You bought 16 ounce cans. Yeah. That was the only six pack of bush light that was available. So we went with the 16 ounce cans and I put my body through torture for the ducts, but it's worth it. You are a man's man. Yeah. Yeah. You're a dude. I'm a dude. You are a dude. You know, 90 miles. I wonder like there's so much we could do there. 90 miles walking. I mean, since you said walking, it's definitely a dude. If you were to tell me I got to run 90 mile, I mean, I barely made it through the three. Right. But but walking 90, I think I could do it. Chris, you hear this? That'd be fun. Walking. I think we've just talked Zach Rudlidge into walking 90 miles to celebrate our 90th anniversary. If we get enough people to donate money for the 90th and we got to set a fundraising goal for it.

28:46No, we could. We could take the podcast trailer to like follow you and tell the story along the way. Yeah. Have a live peanut gallery. Have a live peanut gallery and make this like a really. Oh, man, we are we are on to something here. We'll see this is going to be your project here. Jim Bell right here. I'll shake her hand on our walk 90 miles for no. Let's do it for the 90th. That. Oh, and we take the podcast trailer. We follow you and we raise like what would be cool to be raised 90,000. Right. See if we could get a thousand dollars raised for every mile you walk. We got to like break it up to and do something fun. Yes. We do this at like every 30 miles. Like we're doing some something. I don't know if you can entertain for the people out. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, I remember somebody walked. Somebody did a walking campaign recently for public land. I can. That was Sam Sol. Sam. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. They did that. So yeah, the duck croak. But I think we could. Yeah, that's what it was. But I think we could do something here every 30 miles.

29:47I mean, obviously we break it up over, you know, five or six, seven, eight, nine, nine days. Maybe maybe 10 miles a day. Maybe it wasn't. Maybe we can't Sam to do it with you too. I know. You can see how long we keep going. I got a camper on the back of my truck. I was crawling there whenever it's time. And then take a little nap, get back out. You get the. Oh, we put you in the trailer. Oh, yeah. That's true. We can be a little blow up mattress in the podcast trailer. And then we could put like magnets on it every time we get a mile. We hit a mile. So maybe put some maybe put a duck call on it. And that could be like our thermometer of how much we've raised at the same time. Oh, yeah. That's what I mean. We'll put a split read in there. You know, to do. I'm all one today. Play on words. I have had ad jokes. You're breaking them out. Dude, the dad jokes have been epic today. I had one earlier with with duck. You know, he's all about the Pearl snaps, right? Yeah. And in the golf. And I said, man, swinging in snaps. I mean, dude, like we could make we can make we can make swinging in snaps. Something like where in, you know, the Pearl snaps at the golf course. Yeah. I think we're on to something. Yeah.

30:49Well, oh, man. Now I'm on my racing. I know yours is too. You can't take guys are just thinking about what we can do with this. I'm just thinking about my legs. Well, you'd have to train. Well, you don't have to walk up and down in your house a little bit. Yeah. I think we could find somebody to do it with you. We could find some people. I bet Sam's home would do it. Yeah. Maybe for conservation. Yeah. 90 miles. I think I think he does more than 100 miles. You know what? I bet our chief fundraising officer may do it. I wonder. I don't know where David Schussler is. But, um, hey, well, see if you can get your dad to the duck didn't real quick. We're going to put him on the spot. See if I can convince him really quickly to that. Oh, there's so much we could do here. There's a lot we can do. I'll do it. We got 90 miles to do it. The race might be a lot of you can fit in the 90 miles. Yeah. Oh, there is our chief brand officer won't be there. But he just walked in. But, um, man, every 30 miles. Oh, this is going to be epic. My wonder what? My wonder questions that we don't do it in Memphis, whether it's no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

31:53There's Doug Barnes right there. Doug, we have we just came up with a great idea for the 90th anniversary. Zach Rutledge is going to walk 90 miles for the ducks. And we're going to try to raise $1,000 every mile. We're going to pull the podcast trailer behind him. We're going to have a duck thermometer to say what do you think? He won't be here, but we don't know. We're talking about that. He lives out in Oregon. So, you know, somewhere out there would be cool. But and then so I think maybe David Schuss walks with him or something like that. Like that's how I was kind of thinking like, well, I challenged him here, but we've shook on it now. So he's going to do it. We're going to raise $90,000. We're going to, I'm a man. He doesn't see he likes it. Yeah. He's like it. He's walking over here. 90 for 90, 90,000 90 miles. Zach will have to probably have 90 pairs of shoes. Yeah. Maybe we can get a shoe sponsor. I got some friends at Nike. Now that I live in Oregon, we can see if we get a little DU Nike collab going.

32:58Maybe, you know, Shin ankle boots. Shin ankle boots. We probably have to have nine pairs. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of pairs for sure. I'm going to need to rotate shoes. Like a sweet socks over there. I checked them out. I can't get a socks sponsor. Yeah. Socks sponsor. Maybe Haynes. Hey, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're going to need that. I've seen some athletic shorts floating around out there from different brands. So maybe we can get decked out. I do have my DU dash socks. So maybe just some more pairs of those. Oh, absolutely. We'll get you 30 pairs of those. You can have one every three miles. Yeah. We're going to need a fresh sock replacement going. Someone's going to have to do water sponsor. There's so much we could do. What we need to do is raise a bunch of money before we do this. And that way we don't put all the pressure and tell him to slow down on his walk. We're at $980.00 Zach Borkslope for that last quarter of a mile so we can get that last. Yeah. That last bit raised. So what's the plan for the next week? I know what did you all do today?

33:59We covered a lot of the new products, at least all the stuff that we could find. There's a lot of amazing vendors here today. A lot of really cool products. A bunch of new stuff, obviously, in gear and apparel. And that's kind of what we focused on today. And then tomorrow we're going to go hit kind of the guns and ammo stuff as a separate deal. But everything new on that scene. So what does that look like? What are you all looking for when you're going to the vendors to put on that? Obviously, all these companies do a great job at social media letting everybody know what to look forward to to draw people here. A lot of companies are rolling out with everything here at the show, which is awesome to see. So we're on social media looking nonstop, sending each other what's new, what's exciting. And also just walking the show floor and being like, oh, I've never seen that before. So like, let's stop and like, let's chat with these people. So we've had a lot of exciting, a lot of really cool innovative stuff has been coming out at this show.

35:01And it's super exciting to see. And I know everybody online is going to be super excited to see it too. Heck yeah. All right. Here he is. All right. So we have a, we're about to pitch you on an idea that we've kind of shook on. So you're a lot, you may be locked into this, but Zach has agreed in our 90th anniversary next year to walk 90 miles to raise 90,000 dollars. And I told him that our chief fundraising officer would probably walk with him. He did his 90 miles a day, but we're on to something here. We're going to, we're going to figure this out. We're going to raise some money. We're going to raise 90,000 in the 90th anniversary and Zach and Zach, I'll come out there. Maybe I'll walk nine miles with you. David can walk nine miles. Everybody can take shifts. We'll come out there and pull the podcast trailer behind to even make this a huge deal. Like I think we can raise some serious money with this. Zach and I have shook on it. So I have to look up this. I have to walk 90 miles now. You do have to walk 90 miles and I have to find a way we're going to raise a thousand dollars every mile.

36:02And we're going to find a sock sponsor, an underwear sponsor, water sponsor, shoe sponsor. And we're going to do this. This is going to also put a duck call on the side of the mobile podcast trailer and man. All right. So tomorrow's guns and gear. What Sunday? Wrap it up. Yeah. Probably wrapping up, you know, anything we mess. There's a lot of people here. And there's obviously a lot of a lot of new stuff. So trying to make sure we can hit everybody. That is again, kind of like the focus. Like we're trying to hit everything that's, you know, new coming out this year, but also just like some cool stuff. There's a lot of fun gear here too. You know, there's some really serious technical gear stuff here for, you know, water fell hundreds, but there's also just a lot of like fun. Parallel stuff and other kind of cool gear. But we've got some other social media activation stuff that will probably be shooting on on Sunday. And I might try and go over to the headquarters because I'm still pretty bummed that I missed out on seeing like Boop and this apparently like 20 pound book coffee. I was easily like 30 to 40 pound. It was it was we held the punk gun in the office. I'm so bummed. I missed out on the punk gun was lighter than the book.

37:10Yeah. I've never touched that book. You should go pick it up. I'm going to it's it's huge. Is it 90 pounds? I wouldn't say 90. Maybe, you know, maybe I'll carry the book for part of the long. There you go. I wouldn't that's a lot. It is, you know, maybe read from it. Yeah. Every mile he reads a page. Well, I know y'all got a lot going on. We got a lot of fun things to do tonight. And I to all of our, the people that are maybe following us out there currently online since it's live. But everybody knows Zach is now walking 90 miles next year. Thanks for watching. Man, it's been amazing first day. Thank y'all for being here with us. I am so excited to watch the content that you'll put out after this. And we're going to have a great time tomorrow night at our party. And then Sunday we will all be begging for new shoes and recovering. But thank y'all. I mean, I can't thank y'all enough for your all partnership with D.U. And just what y'all do to help help get the word out there for us and the sponsorships and the partnerships that we have going on.

38:14And I really look forward to seeing where we can take this in the future. Oh, yeah. We love docs unlimited over here at Split Read. And you guys have been great partners. And, you know, obviously giving us tons of amazing stuff to post through our channels and, you know, educate our whole user basis of all these awesome conservation opportunities and new policies and different things like that. Thank you for having us out here. It's been great. Absolutely. I look forward to it every year. Yup. Yup. So we will catch everybody tomorrow morning. We'll be back live in the duck din at 9 a.m. Don't forget first 100 people to come to the duck din will receive an exclusive X hat. Do you have a cat? Do you have a cat? And a yeti engraved stackable cup. And so we'll see y'all back live here tomorrow morning 9 a.m. Don't miss duck expo. If you need to buy tickets, you can buy them at duckexpo.com. Otherwise, come in the show. See y'all. That's a wrap for today's episode of the Ducks Unlimited podcast brought to you by Bird Dog Whiskey in cocktails from post hunt unwinds to celebrations back at camp.

39:15Bird Dog delivers award-winning flavor to every moment and join responsibly. Don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe and check out ducks.org slash Dupodcast for more stories, science, and all things waterfowl. Guest opinions are their own and don't necessarily reflect those of Ducks Unlimited. Until next time, stay fired up, stay focused, and stay tuned to the Ducks. North Dakota is where great waterfowl hunts begin with 2.4 million breeding ducks recorded in the 2026 spring survey, a fall flight expected to be 9% higher than last year. And more than 1 million acres of public hunting access, it's a hunter's paradise. Learn more and plan your trip at hello-n-d.com. The DU podcast is proudly sponsored by Weatherby when every shot counts. Trust the shotguns built to perform. Whether these soarics and element shotguns are endurance tested and field proven, delivering the reliability hunter's demand from opening day to the final flight.

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