Todays blog post comes from Jim Ronquest of RNT Calls and RNT-V. To learn more about RNT-V, please visit their programming page on our website.
Folks are always asking us here at RNT Calls and RNT-V: When is your busy time? Or I bet y’all are slow right now? Truth be told there is always something needing done whether or not it is building calls or putting together TV episodes. It may be seasonal, but takes all year to be ready for go time.
Jim Ronquest of RNT Calls
As a duck hunter there is always stuff to do. If you take care of your own hunting area, it is a good time to work on access roads, plant your food plots, rebuild blinds and think of things that need done that will make your next hunting season more productive, better concealed or at least more enjoyable. With that you need to think of your equipment, change the oil and service your 4-wheeler, service your boat motors and trailer wheel bearings, than go slide it off in the water and take a boat ride scouting new areas and learning better ways to get around the area you hunt the most, maybe take a trip to someplace new and look around. A lot of times that can be coupled with a family get a way. Maybe go fishin’, see some new country, make some new friends and enjoy the whole adventure.
Try and make time to go shoot some clay birds, lord knows I need all the shooting help I can get. Along with that take some time to make sure your calls are in good shape.
Every year just before duck season we get a bunch of people sending in their calls for a re-tune or some other fix. They are in a hurry and we are behind, that is a recipe for some sort of disaster. Nothing worse than the guy going on a big ticket trip to Canada and he sends his stuff in for a tune up a week before he leaves with some sort of note that his new puppy ate the barrel off his favorite call, or they lost the endpiece the last day of duck season because he did not have a lanyard on it. While we will do what we can to get them up and running, there is no guarantee that there aren’t 5 other folks asking for the same thing.
Talking about calls and calling it never hurts to work on it some during the off season. You do not have to practice a lot, but the more time you spend working on your calling or learning a new call the more proficient you will become. Kinda like Doctors and Lawyers, if they are not retired it is said that they are “practicing”. If practicing is good enough for certified smart people like doctors and lawyers, it is good enough for me. I am a practicing duck hunter.
