Speaker 1: Welcome to More out Doors on News Talk five sixty KLVI.
Speaker 1: This is Chester Moore. We're about to enter into the
Speaker 1: hunting season kicking off officially September first, with dove season
Speaker 1: early till following that. And it's that time of year
Speaker 1: if you're a waterfowler you need to start getting your
Speaker 1: dog prepared or maybe you're even like, hey, I need
Speaker 1: to maybe think about getting a dog. So we have
Speaker 1: Brian Johnson duckdog Trainer dot com and talk all about
Speaker 1: the best kind of dog to get that fits your
Speaker 1: type of hunting. It's five years because of our kids,
Speaker 1: outreach often bleeds over in the duck season. I love
Speaker 1: doing it, love talking about it, and my good friend
Speaker 1: Brian Johnson is hooked on it, being hooked his whole life.
Speaker 1: But he has a very special aspect of waterfowl hunting
Speaker 1: as part of his career, part of his life, his
Speaker 1: son Noah's life now a duck dog training. You can
Speaker 1: learn more about him at duckdogatrainer dot com. And to
Speaker 1: talk about duck hunting dog talking about retrievers. Brian Johnson,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the program.
Speaker 2: Hey, I'm glad to be here Chester.
Speaker 1: Yeah, man so it's got to go back to the beginning.
Speaker 1: What got you into duck hunting.
Speaker 3: So I grew up in a duck hunting family. My
Speaker 3: dad took me duck hunting for my first time whenever
Speaker 3: I was nine years old, and I'd been waiting for
Speaker 3: years even for that to happen, and he said, Hey,
Speaker 3: when you're nine, I'm gonna take you. He was very,
Speaker 3: very into duck hunting. He had one of the first
Speaker 3: Refuge legal air boats. I don't even think they had
Speaker 3: airboats allowed on the on the Refuge anymore, but back
Speaker 3: then I think he had like a ten horsepower Chaparral airboat.
Speaker 3: So we grew up duck hunting McFadden out of an airboat,
Speaker 3: and I've just loved it ever since. I don't I
Speaker 3: don't believe I missed a duck season in my life.
Speaker 1: Man, that's pretty awesome. I didn't. My dad duck hunted
Speaker 1: but quit during the point system of the seventies. After
Speaker 1: that he got him really frustrated, and so he would
Speaker 1: complain about that as we were deer hunting as a kid,
Speaker 1: and I never really duck hunted until I was about
Speaker 1: twenty one doing what I do now as a wildlife journalist,
Speaker 1: and you know, pretty much after that, it was just
Speaker 1: being hooked into it. And immediately, I mean everyone I've
Speaker 1: ever taken duck hunting that was new, or anyone I've
Speaker 1: ever been around that was sort of new to the sport,
Speaker 1: immediately they think the ducks are great and the shooting
Speaker 1: is fun, but the best parts watching the dogs work.
Speaker 1: So you training dogs, how long did it take you
Speaker 1: to like really get into the dog element of the
Speaker 1: duck hunt?
Speaker 3: So growing up we had a dog. My dad trained it.
Speaker 3: Her name was Miss marsh Wind and we called her
Speaker 3: Missy and man, she was just a great dog. And
Speaker 3: so I never knew duck hunting without a dog. And
Speaker 3: then I went to college and I no longer lived
Speaker 3: at home and the childhood dog had passed away. So
Speaker 3: one of the first purchases I made as a college
Speaker 3: student was I.
Speaker 2: Bought a dog.
Speaker 3: And I remember back then I didn't know much about
Speaker 3: the pedigrees or how to go about finding the right dog.
Speaker 3: And I at that time I lived in Houston, and
Speaker 3: I went into Houston Chronicle under labradors for sale, and
Speaker 3: I would call everybody, was like it was probably ten
Speaker 3: o'clock at night. Chester way too late to be calling somebody,
Speaker 3: and I would and I would call him and I say, hey,
Speaker 3: do you have any dogs left?
Speaker 2: And maybe it was nine.
Speaker 3: Okay, and anyway, they would all say yeah, and you
Speaker 3: can come look tomorrow.
Speaker 2: And I said, can I come look tonight? And they
Speaker 2: were like no.
Speaker 3: In this one old I mean, he was like a
Speaker 3: crusty old bachelor duck hunter.
Speaker 2: He's like, yeah, you can come out tonight.
Speaker 3: And so I show up at this guy, this random stranger,
Speaker 3: about ten o'clock at night and he's hardcore duck hunter
Speaker 3: and shows me his dog. And I'd heard that you
Speaker 3: needed to get different health guarantees and I said what
Speaker 3: about the health guarantees And he stuck out his hands
Speaker 3: and said I guarantee and I shook his hand and
Speaker 3: I bought my first duck dog and that was my
Speaker 3: dog midnight and she was amazing.
Speaker 1: That is a pretty cool deal. Like he was so enthusiastic,
Speaker 1: showed up, had the handshake guarantee. And so you went
Speaker 1: from like training your own dog till like at some
Speaker 1: point saying, you know what, I might be able to
Speaker 1: make a little bit of money off this or help
Speaker 1: pay the bills.
Speaker 3: Right, And so that was a necessity is the mother
Speaker 3: of invention. A friend had hunted with me and midnight,
Speaker 3: and he was friends of a guy who owned.
Speaker 2: A local sporting goods store.
Speaker 3: Fell by the name of Ronnie Wall and he told
Speaker 3: Ronnie all these great things about my dog. So Ronnie
Speaker 3: called me and said, hey, will you He had a
Speaker 3: dog that he wanted me to train, and he was
Speaker 3: going to buy another dog, and he said, will you
Speaker 3: trained my dog or you a dog trainer? And I
Speaker 3: remember I called the guy who had taught me how
Speaker 3: to train a friend of mine, Mike Cuttler. He was
Speaker 3: a professional trainer, and I cleaned his kennels and he
Speaker 3: showed me how to train dogs. And because I couldn't
Speaker 3: afford to pay, so we had a pretty good trade.
Speaker 3: And at the end of the day, I learned how
Speaker 3: to train dogs. And I remember calling him. I said, Mike,
Speaker 3: this guy wants to know if I'm a dog trainer.
Speaker 3: He said, yeah, tell him you're a dog trainer. So
Speaker 3: I said, I'm a dog trainer. I'll help you train
Speaker 3: your dog. And back then, I remember I charged two
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty dollars a month was what I set
Speaker 3: my price at because that's what a new kennel cost.
Speaker 3: To buy a new kennel, it was two hundred and
Speaker 3: fifty bucks. I only had one kennel that my dog Midnight,
Speaker 3: lived in. So when Ronnie Wall came over with his dog,
Speaker 3: before he got there, I ran and put my dog
Speaker 3: in my bedroom, cleaned out the kennel, had it looking
Speaker 3: real nice, and said well, this is where I'm gonna
Speaker 3: keep your dog. And as soon as he left, I
Speaker 3: took his two hundred and fifty dollars and went and
Speaker 3: bought another kennel. And we did that dog after dog
Speaker 3: until we came up with enough kennels to start a business.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I love that man. It's like, you know, you
Speaker 1: said that, you know you had to kind of do
Speaker 1: this to make it work. But one thing I know
Speaker 1: about you is that you have, you know, not just
Speaker 1: a dog trainer, but you like have a philosophy about
Speaker 1: dog training. So what is your philosophy of training a dog?
Speaker 3: And so Chester, I think it's something that people need
Speaker 3: to understand. They everybody in a lot of areas in life,
Speaker 3: they want everything to fit into a certain box.
Speaker 2: And if you do this, then you get that.
Speaker 3: But but as we know, dogs kind of like people,
Speaker 3: they're not all the same and they don't all train
Speaker 3: the same way. So you've got to learn the dog
Speaker 3: and you've gotta you've got to establish a bond with
Speaker 3: a dog. Now, we we're not real heavy handed. Okay,
Speaker 3: we're gonna respect the dog and the dog is gonna
Speaker 3: respect us. But you know, Jestrick, nobody ever had to
Speaker 3: to force me to go get a hamburger. Okay, I've
Speaker 3: always just gone and gotten hamburgers because I like hamburgers.
Speaker 3: And so we try to kind of train with that.
Speaker 3: Let's let's bring out what this dog loves and and
Speaker 3: let's build on that. So that's that's kind of how
Speaker 3: we've gotten to train.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I had a Chesapeake Bay Retriever and
Speaker 1: we'll talk more about retriever breathe in the next segment.
Speaker 1: And they're a little more hardcore than like maybe a
Speaker 1: lab is. And you know, there was a little bit
Speaker 1: of a heavy handed train on her that didn't translate well.
Speaker 1: But once she got to me back at home, she
Speaker 1: was like, I'm gonna do everything I was training. I
Speaker 1: just didn't like the person to train me very much.
Speaker 1: You know, it was a it was a difference she
Speaker 1: wanted to please me, and she liked to do and
Speaker 1: I made it fun for her. And I like that
Speaker 1: because I've been out times, I've seen guys that are
Speaker 1: so heavy handed with their hunting dogs. I wanted to
Speaker 1: say something, you know, and then and then you have
Speaker 1: some guys that are like happy, go lucky with their dog.
Speaker 1: And then the dog always seemed to do better that way,
Speaker 1: So really really cool stuff. And you know the thing
Speaker 1: about the dog is, these aren't just a tool for hunting.
Speaker 1: These are you know, these are part of your family.
Speaker 1: And I know that you're not the kind of guy
Speaker 1: that just says, you know, oh, that dog will never
Speaker 1: have any attention until I go hunting.
Speaker 2: Right. So I would always talk to my clients when
Speaker 2: they bring a dog in. I would I would ask them.
Speaker 3: I'd say, you know, how how much hunting are you
Speaker 3: expecting to do?
Speaker 2: And and you know there's.
Speaker 3: Sixty to seventy days in a typical duck season, I think,
Speaker 3: and I don't. I don't know anybody that hunts all
Speaker 3: of them, okay, And so I would tell them, I say, look,
Speaker 3: if you hunt every day, let's say you hunted sixty
Speaker 3: five days straight, there's still three hundred other days that
Speaker 3: your dog has to be a pet. So at Duck
Speaker 3: Dog Trainer we wanted to make sure, like my goal,
Speaker 3: we weren't field trial trainers and we no longer do
Speaker 3: the hunt test. I wanted a dog that the other
Speaker 3: days was gonna be an amazing dog. It was going
Speaker 3: to be a pet, It was gonna obey, it was
Speaker 3: gonna be a pleasure for the family, and then when
Speaker 3: you went duck hunting, it would mind you and go
Speaker 3: get your ducks as well.
Speaker 1: Got to love that an obedient dog if you used that.
Speaker 1: A couple of dogs live in my house and we're
Speaker 1: talking with Brian Johnson. You can learn more about him
Speaker 1: at duckdog trainer dot com. You want to get a
Speaker 1: dog trained out there, he's out there in Winny and
Speaker 1: a definitely area for bird hunting. And when we come
Speaker 1: back on More Outdoors, we're going to talk about breeds
Speaker 1: of retrievers. There are different aspects and why they may
Speaker 1: be good or a bad fit for you. On more
Speaker 1: Welcome back to More Outdoors on News Top five sixty
Speaker 1: klv I. This is Chester Moore. Follow me at the
Speaker 1: Chester More. That's the Chester More on Instagram. Higher Calling
Speaker 1: Wildlife on Facebook. You can just go to my blog
Speaker 1: at higher Calling dot net and check me out. And
Speaker 1: every single issue of Texas Fishing Game Magazine. I'm the
Speaker 1: editor in chief for that. Got lots of stories always
Speaker 1: and of course Fridays here six to seven pm on
Speaker 1: news Talk five sixty KLV. I got my good friend
Speaker 1: Brian Johnson, and he's a duck dog trainer, been doing
Speaker 1: this for a long time. In the world of duck
Speaker 1: dogs and retrievers, there's a lot of different kinds. Of course,
Speaker 1: the one that everyone is familiar with is a labrador.
Speaker 1: You know, you think of I used to have a
Speaker 1: chocolate lab. You got black labs, you got white labs,
Speaker 1: yellow lab all kind of probably got purple labs these days.
Speaker 1: But when you know, the labrador is kind of like
Speaker 1: the standard edition, probably the perfect duck hunting dog. But
Speaker 1: over the years, I've seen guys that were like, adamant
Speaker 1: only a black lab or adamant only a chocolate lab.
Speaker 1: Is there any kind of truth to like differences between
Speaker 1: Because I've seen chocolate labs come out of a black
Speaker 1: lab mom before, So is there any difference between those?
Speaker 3: So I would tell you that that good labs are
Speaker 3: good labs.
Speaker 2: It doesn't matter the color.
Speaker 3: It's just like people. Good people are good people. It
Speaker 3: doesn't matter what they look like. You're you're more concerned
Speaker 3: with with their heart and with their attitudes. And that's
Speaker 3: the same with these dogs. So I have seen great
Speaker 3: dogs of every color. I've seen bad dogs of every color. Now,
Speaker 3: I would tell you that probably, you know you, you
Speaker 3: kind of hear that the that the chocolates were the
Speaker 3: weak link, and and maybe the black ones were were better,
Speaker 3: and and if there is truth behind that, it's probably
Speaker 3: because you know you and I had talked about before
Speaker 3: that I've been training dogs. I'm fifty now, and I
Speaker 3: started training dogs whenever I was in college. So you know,
Speaker 3: let's say I was twenty whenever I started, and thirty
Speaker 3: years ago, if you brought.
Speaker 2: Me a dog, nine out of ten times.
Speaker 3: The day you brought that dog, you could dump it
Speaker 3: out of your truck, open the car door, the dog
Speaker 3: jumps out, it's wagging its tail. We throw a dummy,
Speaker 3: and the dog runs out there and gets it and
Speaker 3: brings it back. Nine out of ten times, that's what
Speaker 3: happened thirty years ago. Today, it's probably fifty percent or
Speaker 3: less that they do that with no training.
Speaker 1: So is that because they've been bred for pets or
Speaker 1: different things, or just color variants where people prefer the color.
Speaker 3: They've been bred for color, they've kind of dumbed them down,
Speaker 3: if you would. You know, the lab has been the
Speaker 3: number one breed in America for almost thirty years, and
Speaker 3: different people want different things. I mean, how many people
Speaker 3: do we know that have a lab and how many
Speaker 3: of those duck hunt? I'm gonna say most don't duck hunt.
Speaker 3: There's not that many duck hunters compared to to just
Speaker 3: dog owners. So those dog owners, they just wanted a
Speaker 3: pretty dog that maybe it had a certain look and
Speaker 3: they really wanted a probably an even calmer dog than
Speaker 3: I wanted for duck hunting, So that was bred as desirable.
Speaker 1: No, that's that's really interesting because I've even seen like
Speaker 1: quote unquote silver labs. Is that where someone's throwing some
Speaker 1: wimern aro in there or something?
Speaker 3: You know that that's a lot of debate on that,
Speaker 3: and uh, I'm I'm not the the determining factor on
Speaker 3: what really happened, if you would, I'm not the expert
Speaker 3: on that, but probably so now that being said, I've
Speaker 3: had guys that call me and say I've got a
Speaker 3: silver lab and I called these other and.
Speaker 2: They won't train it. Will you train it? And I
Speaker 2: would tell them, yes, I would train it. But Chester,
Speaker 2: I'll train a monkey if you pay me.
Speaker 1: This is business man, so so.
Speaker 3: And I've trained. I have trained some that are fabulous. Okay,
Speaker 3: they were just really good. Now they are registered as chocolates,
Speaker 3: all silver dogs. When they register them, they register as
Speaker 3: a chocolate. But we know it's a it's a different
Speaker 3: it's a different color. Probably a wye reiner in there.
Speaker 1: Who knows I smell wine marener, I'm telling you. Anyway,
Speaker 1: that's the investigatorjournalistsmouth to go crack the coat on this.
Speaker 1: But of course you have another very popular pet dog
Speaker 1: which is has its roots and retrieving, is of course
Speaker 1: a golden golden retriever. I call them like the Hollywood dog,
Speaker 1: Bush's baked bean dog, you know, uh airbud. But you know,
Speaker 1: golden retrievers can be really really good dogs.
Speaker 2: See, I have had very limited success with golden retrievers. Now.
Speaker 3: The ones that came to me that love to retrieve,
Speaker 3: they did great. But almost none of them come to
Speaker 3: me loving to retrieve. They they just didn't have the desire. Now,
Speaker 3: the ones as as maybe it's a coincidence, but the
Speaker 3: ones that that came to me that loved to retrieve,
Speaker 3: they had field trial backgrounds and they were they were
Speaker 3: good dogs. You know, there there are so many different
Speaker 3: breeds of dogs. You know, we'll we'll tell you that
Speaker 3: that labrador is king.
Speaker 2: Okay, we've changed.
Speaker 3: We've trained the Chesapeakes like like you had and had
Speaker 3: great luck with the Chesapeakes.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: You know, they kind of have the reputation for being
Speaker 3: the hardhead. But what's funny is people the quote common
Speaker 3: knowledge is you got to be rough on a Chesapeake.
Speaker 3: But it's just the opposite, absolutely the opposite.
Speaker 1: Because the person who trained mine was rough and it
Speaker 1: got kicked out of retriever school like the last week
Speaker 1: and said it wasn't doing anything. It was biting, and
Speaker 1: she came home and did every single thing for me.
Speaker 1: She just didn't like the person train her because they
Speaker 1: were too heavy handed. You know.
Speaker 3: So I trained one for a guy and her name
Speaker 3: was Delta, and it's pretty funny.
Speaker 2: Every Delta I just loved her. She was a sweetheart.
Speaker 3: There would be more Chesa Peaks here in the South,
Speaker 3: but they just don't handle the hot weather as good,
Speaker 3: and I think that's why they're probably not as popular
Speaker 3: here as they are up north.
Speaker 2: But oh, Delta man, you like. I just loved her.
Speaker 3: I would get that dog every time I got her out,
Speaker 3: and you're gonna laugh at this.
Speaker 2: I would sing to her. I would say, hell, don
Speaker 2: what's that. I'd sing Delta docta.
Speaker 3: And when the owner would come, I'd sing Delta docta
Speaker 3: and and she just wag her little tail and I'd
Speaker 3: go train her. And she did great. When he first
Speaker 3: got her back and he was having some trouble with her,
Speaker 3: I'm like, bro, you.
Speaker 2: Gotta sing to her. Uh you you need to sing
Speaker 2: this song. And uh.
Speaker 3: But but we we formed a bond and she loved it.
Speaker 3: And and that's why she did good, because she loved me.
Speaker 3: That's how chesapeakes are. Every breed is gonna be a
Speaker 3: little bit different.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: There are the some of the pointing breeds that people
Speaker 3: like to hunt with. They want to hunt with the
Speaker 3: viislas with the German short hairs now, and I've had
Speaker 3: some mixed breeds. But but what I will tell you
Speaker 3: when you start getting into the other breeds. It's not
Speaker 3: just about training and desired it's it's how that dog
Speaker 3: is built and can't handle the conditions. Yeah, there's a
Speaker 3: lot a lot too asking a dog to go in
Speaker 3: thirty five degree water. You know, a lab has a
Speaker 3: multiple layer on it on its coat. It's got that
Speaker 3: that inner lining if you would, It's got a hollow hair,
Speaker 3: it's got a kind of an oly repellent, it's got
Speaker 3: web fee an otter tail. A lab is built for
Speaker 3: water and so it can handle that. But a Viisla,
Speaker 3: for example, even though he likes to retrieve and he
Speaker 3: does good as you're in your yard in the summertime,
Speaker 3: in the wintertime, he's gonna freeze to death.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well then that makes sense. You know, just because
Speaker 1: a dog likes to retrieve doesn't mean necessary it's going
Speaker 1: to be a duck dog. And on the other side
Speaker 1: of the equation, I mean, your labradors and even your
Speaker 1: chest Seas and these other dogs can be great dove retrievers.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and I would tell you that they'll retrieve. A
Speaker 3: dog that loves to retrieve, and once we've taught it
Speaker 3: to retrieve, it'll retrieve anything. I mean, you could literally
Speaker 3: you shoot a squirrel out of the top of the tree.
Speaker 2: In college name it would go get the squirrel. You
Speaker 2: just have to introduce it to what you wanted to retrieve.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's pretty cool stuff. And lots of different breeds
Speaker 1: out there, and you know, like my chessie people. You know,
Speaker 1: a couple of guys were like, oh, you got one
Speaker 1: of those hard headed chessis, So I left her home
Speaker 1: on this one hunt. And one guy had a golden
Speaker 1: one guy had a lab. They were pretty young dogs,
Speaker 1: and these dogs got in a fight over the ducks.
Speaker 1: They send them both out, and I'm like, I should
Speaker 1: have totally brought my chessa to walk up and pulled
Speaker 1: it from their mouths and dare them to get it
Speaker 1: from my chessa. But it's just fun looking at the
Speaker 1: different breeds and you know what they're capable of doing.
Speaker 1: And when we come back on more outdoors, we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk more with Brian Johnson. Him and his son Noah
Speaker 1: run duck dog trainer dot com and they're out in
Speaker 1: the Winny area, many many years of experience with training
Speaker 1: duck dogs, and we're picking his brain about duck dogs.
Speaker 1: It's duck hunting season just right here, so we'll talk
Speaker 1: more about this. We come back on more Outdoors. Welcome
Speaker 1: back tomorrow out Doors of News Talk five sixty KLV.
Speaker 1: I talk to my friend Brian Johnson. He's a duck
Speaker 1: dog trainer duck dog Trainer dot com. He's out in
Speaker 1: Winny area, also pastor of First Baptist Church out there
Speaker 1: in a winnie and he's a good dude, a good friend.
Speaker 1: Put me on the biggest bass of my fly fishing
Speaker 1: career this year. So anyway, that's a good guy in
Speaker 1: in my book. But we're talking about different kind of dogs.
Speaker 1: And I went out there to his channel and I
Speaker 1: saw a dog that looked really familiar, but it's not
Speaker 1: familiar with a lot of people outside the hardcore hunting
Speaker 1: world as a hunting dog. You had standard poodles out there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I knew that you were going to bring that up.
Speaker 3: Of course, it's funny being the macho duck hunter that
Speaker 3: I've been with the exception of a Duck Dynasty episode
Speaker 3: where Uncle Cy had had a standard poodle hunting, you
Speaker 3: don't see or hear much about stand poodles in the
Speaker 3: hunting world, but that's what their background is. My wife
Speaker 3: loves standard poodles and she breaks she breeds those. My
Speaker 3: son Noah, who's our head trainer, has been like, Dad,
Speaker 3: please don't get us into the poodles.
Speaker 2: Okay, please don't do the poodles. He didn't like that
Speaker 2: image anymore than I did.
Speaker 3: However, we've caught one now that my wife she it's
Speaker 3: a about a.
Speaker 2: Little less than a year old pup.
Speaker 3: His name is George Straight and man, I'm telling you,
Speaker 3: George loves the water.
Speaker 2: He loves to retrieve.
Speaker 3: If somebody that we talked about that they want a
Speaker 3: great pet, hypo.
Speaker 2: Allergenic, no shedding.
Speaker 3: So man, you go to sweeping up all the hair
Speaker 3: and vacuum up the hair after a dog, after a lab,
Speaker 3: a poodle starts looking pretty good, and especially if you
Speaker 3: compare that to a.
Speaker 2: Golden retriever's hair.
Speaker 3: So anyway, these these poodles can be duck hunters and
Speaker 3: we're gonna be training. Uh George, I was thinking as
Speaker 3: I knew you were gonna bring this up. She's got
Speaker 3: a litter on the ground right now, and two of
Speaker 3: them were solid white.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, And I thought, now on a goose spread,
Speaker 2: that's your dog.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. I like it, man, And the goose won't
Speaker 1: see it coming that that can't be hunters down there.
Speaker 1: That's a poodle. So kind of cool. But you know
Speaker 1: another thing about besides the different breeds, you got duck
Speaker 1: tolling retrievers and flat coated retrievers and curly coded retrievers,
Speaker 1: all this different stuff. Even among like to just go labradors,
Speaker 1: you have many different types of personalities. And uh, kind
Speaker 1: of your philosophy is to let that dog if it's
Speaker 1: gonna hunt effectively and get your bird and be obedient,
Speaker 1: kind of let it hunt like it likes to hunt.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So when I first got into dog training, I was
Speaker 3: heavily influenced by the hunt test world, and I really
Speaker 3: enjoyed those hunt tests. And then one day I was
Speaker 3: at a at a hunt test, and and I had
Speaker 3: a dog that maybe it didn't do good. There was
Speaker 3: a great duck dog, but it didn't do good at
Speaker 3: that test that day. And and and my buddy told me,
Speaker 3: he said, hey, don't hunt your dog because we were
Speaker 3: hunting a whole lot. He said, don't hunt your dog
Speaker 3: during when you're going to these tests, don't hunt it
Speaker 3: around that time because it won't do as good at
Speaker 3: the hunt test, and I thought to myself, if duck hunting,
Speaker 3: a duck hunting dog that's entering a duck hunting test
Speaker 3: is bad for it, there's something wrong with the test.
Speaker 2: Okay that there's.
Speaker 1: Some wisdom in that. And I was in just that
Speaker 1: ideology in the duck hunting world because when I had
Speaker 1: the privilege of going up to Phil Robertson's house way
Speaker 1: before duck Dunis, it was just the duck men back then,
Speaker 1: just duck commander. He said he got asked to go
Speaker 1: to this world famous duck calling contest. He said, he
Speaker 1: asked him if a duck could win it, and they
Speaker 1: said probably not, and said I'm not gonna go then.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of the same thing. It's like, if
Speaker 1: this dog hunting, the dog screws it up, I might
Speaker 1: not need to do this.
Speaker 3: Yes, so hey, so that that's pretty funny. You talked
Speaker 3: that that Phil Robertson's story. I'm I'm friends with Buck
Speaker 3: Gardner who was also he was a world champion duck
Speaker 3: caller and made the duck calls it and Buck told
Speaker 3: me the story.
Speaker 2: Buck's a good duck hunter, and oh yeah, I.
Speaker 1: Duck hutn't with him? Twice on him Porter Ramsa. It's
Speaker 1: a great guy.
Speaker 3: So he calls ducks in well. And one day he
Speaker 3: told me, and he's also a he's a world champion
Speaker 3: caller and then he won the Champion of Champions and
Speaker 3: he said he showed up at this event and Phil
Speaker 3: had on this shirt that said Phil had a shirt
Speaker 3: that said there are people that call for contests and
Speaker 3: then there are people that call ducks.
Speaker 1: And he.
Speaker 3: That's the shirt that he had and he was kind
Speaker 3: of ribbing it buck, and Buck said, I went out
Speaker 3: that night and I went to one of them places.
Speaker 3: It would make you a shirt, and he said, I
Speaker 3: had me a shirt made that said there are people
Speaker 3: that win calling championships and there are people that call ducks.
Speaker 2: I do both.
Speaker 1: I do both. That's good.
Speaker 2: I like it.
Speaker 1: That's good.
Speaker 3: But uh, anyway, so getting back to that, I had
Speaker 3: been influenced heavily.
Speaker 2: And then I went to a conference that.
Speaker 3: Robert Milner, he was a he's a professional trainer and
Speaker 3: he wrote the best book I've ever read on dog training.
Speaker 3: It was called Retriever Training for the Duck Hunter. And
Speaker 3: he told me, he said, Brian, I want you to
Speaker 3: take everything that you've known about training, and forget about it,
Speaker 3: forget about your test standards and all this. And I
Speaker 3: want you to think as the duck hunter that you are,
Speaker 3: and I want you to figure out everything that you
Speaker 3: like in a duck dog and what you want that
Speaker 3: dog to do, and then I want you to train
Speaker 3: them to do that. And what I learned is, I mean,
Speaker 3: I remember one time I had this dog.
Speaker 2: You know, in the in the field trials, you.
Speaker 3: Don't want a dog to pop, for example, you want
Speaker 3: the dog to run a straight line and never turn
Speaker 3: around and look at you until you blow the whistle. Yeah, well,
Speaker 3: or it gets counted off. Well, if you're hunting in cover,
Speaker 3: in the trees and the timber, you got to blow
Speaker 3: the whistle when he's not standing behind the tree. And
Speaker 3: so a lot of time, by the time you blew
Speaker 3: the whistle, you couldn't see the dog. So I had
Speaker 3: this dog and I was really proud of him, and
Speaker 3: he'd run so far on a straight line. And I
Speaker 3: had another one that I was having trouble with, and
Speaker 3: she'd go fifty yards and turn around and look at you.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And I had a client training with me, and I said,
Speaker 3: which one you thinks better? He said, Man, I like
Speaker 3: that dog that goes out there fifty yards and looks.
Speaker 2: At me and I don't have to blow it whistles.
Speaker 3: And I thought, Wow, different people wanted different things. And
Speaker 3: I had a dog, my first dog. We were hunting
Speaker 3: at Lake of the Pines, and there were there were
Speaker 3: a lot of different islands in the area that we
Speaker 3: were hunting with brush on them, and she would go
Speaker 3: and sit on a different island to get a better view.
Speaker 3: And when we shot the ducks, we never sent it.
Speaker 3: We just didn't pay attention to her. She went and
Speaker 3: got the ducks, picked them up, and brought them back
Speaker 3: to us. Now, that would have failed every test that
Speaker 3: I ever entered, But looking back, she was probably one
Speaker 3: of the best dogs I ever had.
Speaker 2: So what I would tell you.
Speaker 3: If you've got a dog and that dog makes you happy,
Speaker 3: then be happy with it, be proud of it.
Speaker 2: That's your dog. Teach your dog to do what you
Speaker 2: wanted to do.
Speaker 3: And if there are some things that are important to
Speaker 3: you and you bring your dog to a trainer, discussed
Speaker 3: out with your trainer.
Speaker 1: Now that makes sense, you know, like say, hey, look,
Speaker 1: this is the traits I really need in this dog.
Speaker 1: And these are the things I want. And maybe if
Speaker 1: that trainer is not willing to work on that, maybe
Speaker 1: find somebody else. You know, because you're putting in a
Speaker 1: pretty hefty investment not only of money, but you're putting
Speaker 1: investment of time away from your dog. And if you
Speaker 1: get someone to train the dog away, that's not gonna
Speaker 1: work for you. It's gonna be hard to reverse that.
Speaker 3: Yes, and we I told many clients when they would
Speaker 3: bring their dog, we would have a discussion. I would say, look,
Speaker 3: I want to train you the dog of your dreams,
Speaker 3: not the dog of my dreams.
Speaker 1: Well that's good, yeah, And that makes sense because there's
Speaker 1: so much different. I mean, a guy who's hunting thought tanks,
Speaker 1: you know, in the hill country on his deer lease
Speaker 1: is going to have probably some different needs. And a
Speaker 1: guy who's hunting divers out on some big reservoir, you know,
Speaker 1: absolutely really crazy stuff there. So, out of all the
Speaker 1: dogs that you've had and all the retrieves you've ever seen,
Speaker 1: if you've seen one particular retrieve of a dog that
Speaker 1: blew your mind on how it got the duck or
Speaker 1: goose or how it worked out.
Speaker 2: So my dog cold that just passed away.
Speaker 3: We'd gone on a you almost won't believe this story, Chester,
Speaker 3: and everything had to set up perfect for this to
Speaker 3: ever happen. I could never even duplicate it again. Okay,
Speaker 3: we were on a goose hunt and it had been
Speaker 3: foggy all morning long, and the geese were building up
Speaker 3: and it was I guarantee you they were a half
Speaker 3: a mile away from us, Okay, but they were building
Speaker 3: up a concentration over there.
Speaker 2: Well, when the fog lifted, there were.
Speaker 3: All these geese in this concentration about a half a
Speaker 3: mile away.
Speaker 2: Now it was a we'll talk more.
Speaker 1: About incredible duck dogs, duck hunting and the Funnel waterfowl
Speaker 1: hunting pier with Brian Johnson. We come back on More Outdoors.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to More Outdoors on News Top five sixty
Speaker 1: klv I. This is Chester Moore talking with Brian Johnson.
Speaker 1: He's a duck dog trainer out in Winnie. Him and
Speaker 1: his son Noah do some incredible work with dogs out there,
Speaker 1: and they've worked with everything from of course labradors, the
Speaker 1: chesapeakes and goldens and do a lot of work with
Speaker 1: labs and we're talking about amazing duck dogs and the
Speaker 1: whole love and passion of hunting with dogs.
Speaker 3: The wind was blowing from us to the geese, which
Speaker 3: would allow the dog to hear any directions that I
Speaker 3: had given him m hm. Previous to this, I'd been
Speaker 3: I owned I think twenty something acres at the time,
Speaker 3: and on the far into the property, I'd set up
Speaker 3: a goose bread and I would, just for fun, send
Speaker 3: my dog from my house. I'd been putting bumpers in
Speaker 3: that goose bread. I'd get up and I send him,
Speaker 3: and that was probably four hundred yards and I just
Speaker 3: send him there. And we've been practicing that exact same thing.
Speaker 3: So we get there in this duck blind and these geese.
Speaker 2: Are building up.
Speaker 3: And I told my buddy, I said, hey, let me
Speaker 3: send Cole into that goose bread, I mean into those geese,
Speaker 3: and I'm gonna scare those geese up.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And we ran this dog literally half a mile. He
Speaker 3: ran into the goose bread. I blew the whistle. The
Speaker 3: geese jumped up because he was in the middle of it.
Speaker 3: I blew the whistle for him. He could hear it.
Speaker 3: He turned around and came back, and the geese flew
Speaker 3: right in front of him, straight forward us right and
Speaker 3: so as we shot him there, he's just he just
Speaker 3: came back and started picking up geese for us, And
Speaker 3: so I'm like, that would never happen again, except he
Speaker 3: had trained to go to it looked like a spread
Speaker 3: out there.
Speaker 2: We'd trained for that exact same thing.
Speaker 1: You know, waterfowl hunting can be the most exciting hunt
Speaker 1: in the world, or it can be the worst hunt
Speaker 1: in the world, because you know, you can go and
Speaker 1: just have a bunch of action and they're a pretty
Speaker 1: easy spot to go to, or you can hike back
Speaker 1: a couple of miles and get killed by mosquito, sinking
Speaker 1: the mud up to your neck and see nothing. So
Speaker 1: for someone who wants to get started in waterfowl hunting,
Speaker 1: what would you recommend them doing in terms of maybe
Speaker 1: some of their first.
Speaker 3: Hunts man, So it's going to depend on their their conditioning. Okay,
Speaker 3: because younger Brian was in better shape and Chester I
Speaker 3: talking to people that are in this area. I remember
Speaker 3: years ago we would hunt off of the off of
Speaker 3: the beach. We'd go to High Island, take a left,
Speaker 3: go down to whites Levy. I remember driving through the
Speaker 3: surf in the truck and we ruined a good Z
Speaker 3: seventy one truck with all the salt water that it
Speaker 3: would it wouldn't be water whenever we went out, but
Speaker 3: there would be water whenever we came back. And so
Speaker 3: I remember driving out there and then we would we
Speaker 3: would park and I don't think you can enter the
Speaker 3: marsh till like four o'clock, so it's like a like
Speaker 3: a race.
Speaker 2: And we would walk forever through.
Speaker 3: The high grass to go to this pond, and we'd
Speaker 3: be following our phone looking at the GPS and and
Speaker 3: end up in a pond. And man, we had some
Speaker 3: incredible hunts, but there is no way fat older Brian
Speaker 3: would do that today. So if you're the young guy
Speaker 3: in shape, go pursue that hunt. Get you the the
Speaker 3: on ex some of those apps, look at the different deals,
Speaker 3: get on Google Earth, find you some public places and
Speaker 3: and venture out and go do that. Okay, if you
Speaker 3: are wanting to get into it and you're a little
Speaker 3: bit older and.
Speaker 2: A little bit out of shape, the guide is the
Speaker 2: way to go.
Speaker 3: Just pay the guide, go with him, enjoy the experience.
Speaker 2: Duck Hunting can be a lot of work.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know now, we we don't even take
Speaker 3: a side by side anymore to where we hunt. I
Speaker 3: drive my truck literally twenty feet from where we're gonna hunt,
Speaker 3: dump the decoys out, go hide the truck, walk back
Speaker 3: and throw the decoys out.
Speaker 2: So duck hunting, it can be as hard or as
Speaker 2: easy as you want it to be.
Speaker 3: Unfortunately, as I look back, it seems like the harder
Speaker 3: hunts I killed more ducks on.
Speaker 1: Well, that's because you're getting in remote areas, you know.
Speaker 1: And that's the thing. It's like, the ducks aren't stupid,
Speaker 1: you know. You know. I'm looking back and just thinking
Speaker 1: about some my favorite duck hunts, and one of my
Speaker 1: favorite hunts was actually a really easy one. Some guys
Speaker 1: who had access to a private stretch of the Perdinality's
Speaker 1: River by Fredericksburg. We killed limits of mallards and gadwall
Speaker 1: in the Perdinale's River. When they hit they would hit
Speaker 1: the limestone. It sounded like a plane crashing, you know,
Speaker 1: and a place you wouldn't think about waterfowl hunting, or
Speaker 1: going up the crocket and getting to the blind late.
Speaker 1: And this guy's blind and I'm walking through the decoys
Speaker 1: and there are gadwall lighting in the decoys. As we're
Speaker 1: literally like.
Speaker 2: Two feet from me.
Speaker 1: You know, that's not the always hunt it was. You know,
Speaker 1: usually have to work a lot harder for things like that.
Speaker 1: But just seeing the birds fly, you know, watching the
Speaker 1: dog work, all that's exciting and you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: a fun part of it. And I think unfortunately sometimes
Speaker 1: some of the attitude in the waterfowl world gets a
Speaker 1: little bit sideways, especially sometimes on public land stuff. People
Speaker 1: get real possessive. But I always tell people, man, do
Speaker 1: what you can enjoy doing, you know, and don't let
Speaker 1: some you know guy on social media who has nothing
Speaker 1: else to do, becase he's unemployed, and all he does
Speaker 1: is they fit and walk the marsh, you know, scare
Speaker 1: you and the have them and go do some kind
Speaker 1: of suicide hunt when you can go afward a guide
Speaker 1: trip and they can drop you off in a pitblind right.
Speaker 3: And I'm gonna tell you duck hunting, if you will
Speaker 3: scout and you will find out where the ducks want
Speaker 3: to be. Some of the best duck hunts I had.
Speaker 3: You were talking about the river part Dallas River. We
Speaker 3: had a place in northeast Texas. We hunted a dairy
Speaker 3: and this dairy there were I don't know how many
Speaker 3: cows there were.
Speaker 2: There are hundreds of.
Speaker 3: Cows, and they would feed them and they fed on
Speaker 3: this concrete deal and they all lined up. And anyway,
Speaker 3: when they finished feeding them, they turned on these water
Speaker 3: deals and it just shot this water and it cleaned
Speaker 3: up all of their poop.
Speaker 2: Okay, where every cow had pooped.
Speaker 3: They just flushed it out and it went down this
Speaker 3: big pipe and it went to the very back of
Speaker 3: the property to this two acre pond.
Speaker 2: Okay, the cowpoop pond.
Speaker 3: But them cows had been eating grain, and I'm guessing
Speaker 3: that's what ended up in the pond. Chester There were
Speaker 3: so many ducks in that pond. We weren't doing anything illegal.
Speaker 2: There were no no decoys. It was a two acre pond.
Speaker 3: If you if the limit was six gadwall and you
Speaker 3: brought six people, you were gonna shoot thirty six.
Speaker 2: Gadwall and and they just came in.
Speaker 3: Now I remember friends saying, you know you don't have
Speaker 3: where's your duck call, where's your uh you know, where
Speaker 3: are your decoys? I'm like, do you see any other
Speaker 3: water around here? If a duck fly ows over where
Speaker 3: do you think he's going? Don't do anything to discourage you.
Speaker 3: Maybe more action, but not quite as scenic as the prodenal.
Speaker 3: I love it though, you never know.
Speaker 1: Like one of my favorite fishing times I've ever done
Speaker 1: in my life, I've been there four times, is fishing
Speaker 1: the ditch across from a landfill in southern Florida for
Speaker 1: peacock bass. Now I'm stepping on broken glass and God
Speaker 1: knows what else. But we're out there doing our thing,
Speaker 1: enjoying it. And you know, you and I are laughing,
Speaker 1: and you know I'm smiling. I know you are too,
Speaker 1: talking about this, and that's really the important part of this, Brian,
Speaker 1: that we get to go into God's creation enjoy ourselves
Speaker 1: and you know, just enjoy the best of the great outdoors.
Speaker 1: So thank you for being on the program. Now someone
Speaker 1: wants to connect with you and maybe get a dog
Speaker 1: trained or learn more about what you have to offer.
Speaker 1: How can they connect.
Speaker 3: So they can go to our website at Duckdog Trainer
Speaker 3: dot com and that'll have my personal cell phone number
Speaker 3: on it and my email address. Or they can come
Speaker 3: to church. Shit first Baptist Winnie, and after I finished
Speaker 3: preaching at the end of the service, they say, hey,
Speaker 3: I heard you talking on More Outdoors and I wanted
Speaker 3: to learn about dog training.
Speaker 1: That may be one of the best church pitches I've
Speaker 1: ever heard. Brian, I like that. That's really really good stuff.
Speaker 1: So I know you're excited. It's that time of year.
Speaker 1: We're about to have our duck season. Of course, you know,
Speaker 1: who knows what's gonna be going on with ducks flying
Speaker 1: drought this year. But that's another thing about it makes
Speaker 1: it interesting. You never know what the conditions are going
Speaker 1: to be. So thank you so much for being on
Speaker 1: the program, and guys, I appreciate you listening to More Outdoors.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening to program. Follow me at
Speaker 1: v Chester Morren Instagram. Get the podcast of the show.
Speaker 1: Go to KLVI dot com. Took on a podcast link
Speaker 1: at the top of the page. We'll see More Outdoors.
Speaker 1: Go back in the archives or find on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1: Subscribe to my blog at higher Calling dot net, find
Speaker 1: me a hire calling while ife on Facebook, Texas Fishing Game,
Speaker 1: and who knows where else you're gonna find me outdoors.
Speaker 1: Bless and have a great outdoors weekend.