PABoyzOutdoors Goose Hunting B.S. Session

This week on the Pennsylvania Woodsman we chatted with Garrett Regalski, co-owner of PABoyzOutdoors social media page.  Garrett eats, sleeps, and breathes goose hunting, and we have a good old fashioned B.S. session on the matter.  Garrett talks about last season's success from multiple limits to multiple bands.  This year may require a slight adjustment to time available with a new job in place, which he touches on briefly.  We discuss essential gear versus time and money wasters, decoy spreads and well camouflaged blinds, and do you really need to pattern a goose gun?  Learn from Garrett by his experience, and get fired up for the season right around the corner!

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You are listening to the Pennsylvania Woodsman, powered by Sportsman's Empire Podcast Network. This show is driven to provide relatable hunting and outdoor content in the keystone state and surrounding Northeast. On this show, you'll hear an array of perspectives from biologists and industry professionals to average Joes with a lifetime of knowledge, all centered around values, aiming to be better outdoors, men and women both in the field as well as home and daily life.

No clicks, no self-interest, just the light in the pursuit of creation. And now your host, the Pride of Pennsylvania. The man who shoots straight and won't steer You wrong. Johnny Apple. See himself. Mitchell Shirk. Mitchell Shirk. Mitchell Shirk.

Mitchell Shirk: Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Pennsylvania Woodsman Podcast. This week I am coming off of the the high of vacation back to reality, but that's okay. Into the month of August here. This is my last [00:01:00] free week. I have until my wife's field hockey schedule starts up. And I bring that up because like then it turns into, she's a college field hockey coach.

It's six days a week. It's mostly in the evenings, so it gets harder with, a full-time job and kids and stuff. It gets harder to do those last minute preparations and plan stuff. But I'm still cooking up some stuff and planning some things out here for last minute. I got food plots to plant.

I have I have the place out in Western Pennsylvania that I do have a weekend trip planned. I got somebody watching the kids for me that I can go out and get some stands adjusted for me. I'm gonna hang up a set of blind up. At the food plot, plant this food plot move some cameras around, get stuff situated for fall.

'cause I probably am not gonna get back out there until the first time I hunt it. And I have no idea when that's gonna be. I. And then I have the projects that I always have at home that I keep neglecting. I've been doing [00:02:00] a lot of house projects lately, but like now that we're getting closer to hunting season and I'm thinking about, how my property would do so much better if I did this, that, and the other thing.

Now I'm trying to squeak in those last minute projects. Now I've got the idea. I want to get, potentially get a a front end loader, a little skid loader of some sort and and move some vegetation around and reorient the orientation. Yeah, reorient the shape of my food plot and kind of make it flow a little bit better.

And yeah, just always something, I get these big ideas. I don't know how much of it I'll get done, but of course I'm trying to. Jam pack as much into the last little bit of free time I have before the season. So we'll see what happens. But I am starting to get a little bit excited. The other thing too that I'm excited about it is official.

I just found out New Jersey has, they have announced a bear hunt. So I am planning to [00:03:00] try to squeeze in some scouting missions down there when I have no idea how, I have no idea when I could hunt it. I still have no idea. I'm just gonna roll with it. But that's something I've really wanted to do and I'm excited to do.

So that's what's been going on with me this week. We're not really talking about anything of that matter on this week's show. We are talking with Garrett Rogowski, who is the co-owner of the social media page, PA Boys and Garrett is a diehard I. Goose Hunter. He's a waterfowl hunter, but he's a goose hunter.

Like nothing. Trips his trigger like shooting Canada geese. And this is just an all around general BS session. We talk about the successes that he had last year some of the cool sets they had in learning experiences. We dive into a couple. What if situations we talk about what are some of the biggest things that he wasted money on over the years?

[00:04:00] Because waterfowl hunting and goose hunting can get expensive and we wanna know what the, I wanted to know what the most essentials. The bear essentials would be, and what were some of those things that he might've learned a hard way was probably not a necessary purchase. We talk a little bit of strategy stuff.

We talk about some updates happening with the PA boys Facebook, Instagram, social media pages. And we talk about what in his mind are some of the holy grails of waterfowl hunting. So this is an all around BS session. There's definitely some stuff to pick up if you're interested in waterfowl hunting, goose hunting, you wanna get better at it, or you you wanna take some advice from somebody who's just lives, eats, sleeps, and breathes goose hunting.

Garrett's the man. So check 'em out. Follow those guys on social media and let's get to this episode. First before we do, let's give our shout out to our sponsors, and that would be Radox Hunting guys, trail cameras, m core cell cameras, and Gen six hundreds. Get 'em out, get 'em running, get prepped for the season.

I still say trail cameras are one of the most valuable [00:05:00] tools I can have, and I want something that's reliable and gives me good image quality. And that's where companies like Rads come in and they're they're not gonna be a company that's gonna break your bank. You can get multiple trail cameras and you can still be pretty happy with your bank account in the end.

Check out their other accessories from trail cameras stick and pick accessories for, mounts and things like that. They've also got the option of check out their they've got Monarch Hunting blinds, Sarge soft Side, hard Side, and they're. Feeders, check 'em out. If it's a, if you're a state that uses feeders for hunting, check that out.

And then also give our shout out to Hunt Worth. Now's the time to do your inventory, what you need for the season, or if you want to upgrade some stuff. And I just purged a whole bunch of stuff that I just felt like I didn't need anymore. I had drawers and totes, plastic totes filled with clothing that I just don't have the need to use anymore.

It just takes up space and I don't wear it. Like I've washed it throughout the years and then [00:06:00] it sits in the tote all year long. And I don't wear it because I keep going back to stuff that's more comfortable, like my hunt worth, like the Elkin stuff that I've been using and the lightweight stuff that I've been using.

I love the camo pattern. I love the disruption. Really keeps you hidden. Keeps me comfortable. I'm really comfortable when I'm in the stand, when I'm walking in the mountains, I feel like it's like athletic gear. So check out Hunt worth products and all their clothing and accessories they have. And with that, let's get to this episode.

So joining us again today on the show for the Pennsylvania Woodsman podcast. I got Garrett Rogowski back. Garrett, what's going on? I. So much about yourself. Hey, we are busy. I just got back from a family vacation. I was telling you I had some headaches recording, but I've been doing all my planning ahead and trying to get everything squared away for this fall and episodes.

And then with that, I, that's got me fired up for my fall season. I just did a bunch of camera inventory. I had a bunch of trail camera SD cards that I [00:07:00] never went through from last year. And I just went through and was like, reliving some of those cameras and looking at 'em more in depthly from the data aspect of, and trying to use whatever I could for this fall.

And I, surprisingly enough, got some information that I'm hopefully gonna use this fall for my advantage. But I know how that goes. You make great plans and the deer do what they wanna do, but yeah. Yeah. So it's it's been good. I've been slowly getting anxious for season, but I know your your season's coming right up around the bend here.

How's how's the work schedule looking to, to line up for this year's season?

Garrett Regalski: Pretty good. Weekends, holidays, I changed an excavation job, so it's depends on the day. We're gonna try have as much possible. We're gonna go for 500 this year,

Mitchell Shirk: Gotcha.

Yeah, I remember last year when we were talking with you work took a back burner throughout the season, so some changes in life have made that a little bit more difficult.

Garrett Regalski: Yep, absolutely.

Mitchell Shirk: How's the mental state behind that right now? [00:08:00] I said I said, what's your mental state, your thought process behind that?

'cause that's a big change. I know, like I'll speak for myself personally. Like when everything else in life gets in my way of what I like to do or want to do. Sometimes it's just hard to overcome that and stay mentally positive or focused. So like how are you fine tuning that? Are you picking specific times that you really want to go?

Or do you have some bigger trips lined up?

Garrett Regalski: So last year, middle of December, we went to New York with final flight out or final Flight Outdoors Outfitters, final flight water products. And we went up on a diver hunt on Ontario. We did, pretty good. Shoot, I think we like 15 ducks in two days or something.

But all ducks, we don't here we were gonna Arkansas for ducks this year, but everybody's got, so we're gonna go next year for. And then I just got a phone call about 15 minutes this meeting saying, Hey, you wanna go back up there to New York next year on snow goose hunt? [00:09:00] So that's about the only thing that's on itinerary this year for now

Mitchell Shirk: at least.

Good deal. Good deal. And then of course you're you're gonna be going around the local flyways as much as you possibly can.

Garrett Regalski: We got, we've got a lot locked down this year. We have probably double what we had last year and everything last year. That was normally

I we're we shot, so we're going for five.

Mitchell Shirk: I can't even imagine and fathom that. That's that's a lot of steel shot to be going through.

Garrett Regalski: It depends. It's not one guys, but it's every time we had seven shoot. Probably second to September and we killed 57 with two bands, a four year old from West Virginia, a six year old from North up Erie.

And then it was kind like this, like 10 here, 15 here, 20 here. And then we had another big shootout, we [00:10:00] 37. And then the last, just, it was like 15, 20 stacked here and there what we could get. And then the last day of the season we had a pretty good

30 even. We killed a 14 year old band up by Erie.

Mitchell Shirk: So when I think about my fall and how I plan my vacation and my time off, I usually plan it around specific windows of. Times I like to hunt. Like for me, if I'm picking times for October or for archery season, there's a few specific times to the tail end of October.

I really like to hunt and if I can help it, I won't miss it. And then I always make sure I designate some time for the first week of rifle season just because I have some family hunts that I like to do. But when it comes to that archery stuff, like there's two weeks this year that I'm gonna really try to hone in on and be prepared to go hunting and use some vacation on, just because I think that's when I have the [00:11:00] best history of maybe potentially connecting with one of those buck.

So with that in mind, do you have any kind of timeframe that you really like to want, like really want to hit it hard? When it comes to ducking geese hunting, is it the first time, is the best time just from that pressure aspect or or is there a little bit more to it in your mind than that?

Garrett Regalski: So usually the first two weeks, it's a good time to go because all the geese are, they're just coming off summer.

People golfing around them, fishing around them. They're a little bit dumber in first two weeks and they start winding up. And then if we get a big cold front come from the north, lots of snow or real cold, lots of wind, it'll push them down from Canada. So we try to, anticipate when one of them gonna come last right around Christmas.

And we shot, oh, I missed, we shot a six man, like 35 minutes after shooting. Like we were done out, packed up with a six man, but it was cold front on New Eve. It got real cold and all the came down and [00:12:00] next morning we up 30 minutes

Mitchell Shirk: And that was all given because weather fronts pushed in a bunch of birds that weren't local to the area.

I'm assuming

Garrett Regalski: We think so. The, one of our, one of the kids hunt lives not very far. So he drove, there's a bunch of, this has been cut for two months. I, any geese in here. And then he drove by the next day and he's dude, back in here we gotta hunt. And it just so happened to be New Year's day and we went in there and it was a massacre.

Mitchell Shirk: Yeah. Everything you dream about when it comes to being a waterfowl hunter, right? It

Garrett Regalski: was. So we've never shot a field mallor around here, like duck ducks in a drive field. And we sat up and everybody stands around the blinds for a couple minutes, like looking, making sure everything's alright and adjusting little stuff.

We heard a quack and it was foggy, rainy, just nasty. And we heard a quack and we all started looking around, there's this mallard just coming into, so I hit the ground and my buddy Jimmy, he's is it time yet? And I clicked my phone. It was one minute after shooting, he [00:13:00] pulled the trigger and it was nonstop from then for 30 minutes.

And we were done. Six guys packed ups in the trailer and down the road it was, I probably spent a total of five minutes in my layout. We'd shoot a couple geese, I go to get one.

Back and forth. That was probably the

Mitchell Shirk: best hunt we had all year. There was probably more time spent in your decoy spread than there was actually hunting at that point.

Garrett Regalski: Yeah, absolutely. I bet you for probably 30, 25 out

was good time. It was good. We went and had breakfast and it was a good deal. We caught hunted it the next day. There wasn't a bird sight. Yeah. It was super foggy and we couldn't hear a thing. Couldn't see a thing. It was, it all hit and miss.

Mitchell Shirk: How many times do you get to see the stars align in such a situation like that throughout a given [00:14:00] season or out throughout a couple of given seasons?

Garrett Regalski: About 50 50, to be honest with you. I know two years ago we had, one of our guys was driving up camp and guys, Shot two or three something do on weekend and he drove past the, he said there was piling in there. So this was like 11 30, 12 when they go water and they go back to usually the same, where he, when he was driving past.

So we went up and it was like 80 degrees, it was end of September, it was the last day, our early season. And we went up and we just, we had all the decoy bags and everything because it was probably a 200 yard walk uphill. We couldn't drive in this field. So we're carrying stuff and it strike the thunder.

And so we're like, we'll just go the truck, calm down a little, the decoy and up and there's five cruising down into the spread. So we went up, we shot one outta that five and then it was just KA 31.

Mitchell Shirk: So a lot like, [00:15:00] like a lot of other people talk about, weather has a huge impact for it.

Garrett Regalski: It does.

I.

Mitchell Shirk: Yeah. Speaking of that, I can I, going through those trail camera pictures this the past few weeks, I really noticed there was a couple of windows when I had amplified deer movement, amplified daylight movement. And I traced that back to what the weather was doing. And there was a lot of peaks and valleys in temperature at those points.

And every time that, there's a couple day window, it was right around a cold front. It might not have been spot on, but it might've been, the beginning half or the tail end of that cold front. And that kind of really got me excited. And I keep thinking ahead too I wonder what the future's gonna hold for this season.

I know it's always a new season. There's always new, new beginnings in that. But anything that could be similar in replication might lead to, to, that data being used. So I was kinda curious about [00:16:00] decos. I was thinking about this the other day. We were, I was talking with some friends of mine and the visual acuities of different gain.

There's a lot of people throughout the country that talk about hunting deer, elk, and moose and stuff like that, that you don't really need special camouflage. You can go out with solid patterns, stuff like that. And you can get away with murder as long as you're still in play of the wind.

But in talking with that, there's. Other species like birds that have incredible eyesight. And geese are not sub subjecting, neither are ducks. They've got fantastic eyesight. Absolutely. And I've always made fun of a lot of my friends who are waterfowl hunters because of how specific they can get with their decoy spreads.

And some people like to use silhouettes. Some people, only use specific brands. Some people only use taxidermy mounted decoys if they've got the investment that they're willing to do. So I just kinda wanted to dive into that with you a little bit because everybody's got their own perspective.

So

Garrett Regalski: I tell everybody that wants to get into it. I said, it's not about, how you set [00:17:00] your decoys, what about how much money you got, your decoys. It's about to hide. If you can be, if you can look no different than the ground you're laying on at all. If say somebody just walked past and you weren't moving, they'd walk right past it.

That's the big deal. You could have. 10 equally that you could have hundred dozen that, a hundred dozens gonna kill you more than 10 just from the site. Seeing them up in the air, you dozen. That's a lot of equals, but it's more so the than the de. That's pretty much like how everybody, but we run old school, bigfoots, Bigfoot, full bodies and silhouettes, and.

Mitchell Shirk: Talk a little bit more about camouflaging in a blind, because the first thought that comes to my mind is you, if you're sitting in a cut cornfield, or a, I should say a pick cornfield not a cut. Cornfield in the sense of like silage. If it's a, if it's a pick cornfield that you've [00:18:00] got a lot of stove and corn fodder out there, in my mind it's pretty easy to have enough cover there to blend in.

However, there's probably a lot of other situations in which you're gonna, you're gonna blind yourself and it can be hard to figure out what you're gonna use. So talk a little bit more like, how do you prepare? Do you scout an area out to have, know what you need or bring material with you?

Sometimes in those situations where it might be void in a field?

Garrett Regalski: So we go, usually the first two weeks, everything's pretty green and.

End know when around we'll it'll,

and that does it ages. If we cut about within the week, early season starting it'll, and it'll age with everything else. Like it'll start turning yellow, start turning brown with everything else. [00:19:00] And we just leave that on there as a filler cover. And then say we go to a cut hay and we're gonna hunt out panels.

So you already got all that green tall grass and you just go around. It depends what kind or who cuts it or how they cut it or whatever. But most of the time you just take a yard and piles of it up and then you just fill in as close sitting.

We have this one.

But it's probably 60 yards, the pond from like the closest part of the corn. But there's a row of pine trees and every time we hunt in, we hunt panels because the way the pine trees is cut, you can put the panels in and it's like a solid wall. Pine trees, we'll go, we'll run around we a bunch of pine trees or whoever's on property don't, and we'll chop all the branches off of them and then we'll just fly the panels in with all them.

That's one time we take it with us because if we chop them off the pine there, it ruins our [00:20:00] cover. We don't wanna, in. All

Mitchell Shirk: right. So you're, I'm assuming, we talked last year and we were talking about how you gauge where you're gonna sit next few days and a lot of it comes with a hard scouting.

So in a situation like that, are you just having to play yourself like at the last minute and like I gotta have that option for planning that out?

Garrett Regalski: It's like I said, a lot of these fields we've hunted in the past, so we already know where. The middle of the geese,

you know where geese are gonna, where they're,

you wanna in preferably as high as you can go. If you're of the hill down the big at the hill there, all you know where [00:21:00] that,

Mitchell Shirk: what's, what in your mind is the reason for that high point advantage? Like I think a lot of time in Turkey hunting, I always wanna be at the top side just 'cause I can't call birds down hills, just as simple as birds don't have the comfortable way of landing if they're on a side hill or in a lower section,

Garrett Regalski: they.

How do I put this? They can see it from I'm a firm believer in a flag. I dunno if you've ever seen a goose or not. You can turn birds from a mile and away.

They're hunting the way the.

Mitchell Shirk: Yeah, that's a perfect example of how good eyesight is on birds too. 'cause I have been goose hunting and seen that [00:22:00] situation where you'll be looking I'll never forget the, one of the first times I ever went, they were glassing across a highway and it was easily over a mile and we could see birds and the flick of a flag a couple times and they turned on a dime.

And I was like, dumbfounded that from that far away you were gonna have that much of an impact on a flock of geese.

Garrett Regalski: I used to think that flags were, they, because if they're laying out a black thing on the, and last year statement, like I said, we had a 60 shoot, we had two big 30 shoots, couple and all the birds were way away.

You just pick the flag up and we hunted last year aframe a lot because you got more room you can stand, it's hit and miss. It's much more room than oh, can put a body heater in there. It, a lot of the wind, but we use like 10 foot pipe

above it. [00:23:00] Like

Mitchell Shirk: Yeah. That, so you're talking about using tools for the given situation. And I think a lot of time when we get a lot of this in the hunting industry, in the hunting world, where you'll get people who will shout always to something and never to another. And I feel like that a lot of the time that's not the case.

It's just using the tool for the right time in a situation. The example I'll think of is like food plots with whitetails. If you're, if you have a property that you're gonna maximize late season, that's your best opportunity. And I'm not gonna cater my food plot program to alfalfa. I want something that's gonna be winter hardy that's gonna stand volume for late season.

There's a lot of other options where you talk about so talk about using tools for the given situation. You talked about people that would, you know, typically, and you even said about flags not being something you would use much. Are there other things within waterfowl hunting goose and duck hunting that people would shy away from, but in your mind it's a tool to [00:24:00] use at the right time?

Yeah,

Garrett Regalski: it's a, it's a.

I'm not terribly Duck.

Duck had

duck

last year and it worked pretty good. We killed, it wasn't a big limit, it was this little tiny ice hole right around Christmas when everything was froze. But this is like a natural spring since it stayed open and there was probably six ducks in pond and it was no bigger, a full size pickup truck. It was just tiny little, we on a pintail, which we still think about.

We killed a band black duck. We killed a black duck hybrid and then a green head, four or five duck. But it was just because it looked like, in the water puls and [00:25:00] there's not much.

Put this, it's not been used, tested, have their opinion. People have their opinions on them already. Not for Canada.

They're cyclone or whatever, like a big power. And the birds rolling around not.

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So where do you think the best money is spent when it comes to people who are getting excited and are they want to grow because another thing I will say too, within the hunting industry is there are people out there that can lack of a better term. They can sell a ketchup popsicle to a lady in white [00:27:00] gloves.

You can sell you something you really don't need even though you believe you need it. Talk a little bit about like what's the meat and potatoes versus the icing on the cake type stuff?

Garrett Regalski: So you need a good call and you gotta learn how to use it. Good. A good, what I tell people a good and if you're starting out, gonna do it by yourself, you need like a good blind, warm clothing and that's about it.

And a good call to blow if you know how to blow one.

Mitchell Shirk: Yeah, that's, that, that would make sense to me. I just feel like there's so many gadgets, gizmos and gimmicks out there that it's really hard to see past it.

Yeah,

Garrett Regalski: like I've had, I'm probably the person that's had the most money spent trying to figure out what I like.

So you, some people argue Ho Matthews company stuff like Chevy Dodge and I've had first year, I bet you I had nine shotgun [00:28:00] and it was like, I couldn't swing this one. Good. I didn't like it. This one jammed had a bunch of problems when got cold and so on and it's kind a, you know what fits, I guess I said I've had nine shotgun, 10 or 11 blinds.

It's matter what you like, like I like Winchester shotguns. Once I bought one of them. I've never, I've shot finale, I've shot mos that shot, pretty much every shotgun there is to shoot and Winchester's my bread and butter, just like the blinds we bought. I've had a, I hated it. I sold it.

Just a matter of what you like. I bought a kickback pair last year from dive bomb, and it's pretty much the lay flat chair with a blanket on it, and it works pretty good, but it's, when it's cold, it's, it doesn't do you as well as an AC or layout does the layout blocks a lot of the wind and stuff.

Mitchell Shirk: So continuing down that topic of, gadgets and gimmicks, and you said you've probably been somebody that has spent more money than [00:29:00] anybody trying to figure out what you like, what were some of the things that stand out in your mind of gear that you take that was just a mistake and like worst learning experiences ever from your own personal experience?

Garrett Regalski: So I came across a Beretta Extre of two, three and a half inch, 12 gauge. And at the time I was just using a cheap mossberg and I was like, this is, this is a three and a half goose gun. It was like carrying a 10 foot tube by eight anywhere you went, it weighed so much, but me, you could not kill that gun.

You could throw it in the mud. Pick it up and it would run all three to it. But it was just so heavy that it wasn't practical. Like when you come outta a layout line, you're trying to be and pop up and shoot. It was like trying to like a 10 foot by out, get it centered up and start sez. That was another, that was one I actually, my buddy had I sold it, one of my buddies and he loved it.

I dunno why, but what else is kind that works? I shouldn't have never bought this.[00:30:00] That's probably the number one thing. The rest of I bought, but I like this and sold, I wasn't like a true hatred, but that Beretta was, it was good. Caught me through the first two years I was serious into it, but I'll never own another one again.

Mitchell Shirk: Gotcha. Anyway, continuing down the road, you're talking about shotguns and I know you landed on your, I'd call your old Bessie. You talked about that last year a little bit, but. Tell me a little bit about patterning from a per perspective of ducking geese. I've patterned Turkey guns many times and pretty much my thing is tightest pattern at the furthest distance and I'm happy.

But there's probably a little bit more angles that you're gonna look at that from ducking geese hunting. So what are you looking at as far as pattern and how are you adjusting that? Or do you have to adjust that throughout the season and the type of hunting you do?

Garrett Regalski: So it, it depends. I know most people, they say, you're hunting ducks.

You wanna modify, choke or improve cylinder, something that widens your pattern out because they're so small and they fly so fast. [00:31:00] But I shoot a full or an extra pole all year. I shoot it for dumb, I shoot it for pigeon, I shoot it for duck, I shoot it for geese. But you get so accustomed to shooting that pattern when it comes out that know, a wood duck flies faster than the mallard.

I.

I have to lead by but it's all a matter of what you're comfortable with. Like I shoot an extra four or a full all year. How was that? No idea neither. I shoot an extra four or a full all year, so it, I went to a skeet shoot two years ago with a bunch of skeet shoot guys. That's all they do is skeet shoot and they got 10, 15,000 over under guns and they're like, okay, we gotta switch from a mod to an improvised cylinder and improved mod for this station.

I just load the only Winchester up with the extra pool choke in it, and they're a bunch of my buddies, so it's not I wasn't.[00:32:00]

How much you spend shooting that? I said you

okay.

That's pretty much it. That's, I'm probably the worst person to talk about that because I shot a full or an extra bull since I started.

Mitchell Shirk: Yeah. But you know what? I'm so glad you brought that up because I'll never forget. So one of the places that I work is very close to a well-known bird game farm and has, ski and stuff like that.

And I have, some of my clients that have gone there and they said, we've gone with our friends and we shoot our junky [00:33:00] old, eight seventies or mossbergs or whatever, and you're shooting with guys that you know have fancy overrun shotguns. And he said we'll stick right with them just because that's what we're used to.

And I think it's the Indian, not the arrow is a big statement. 'cause that holds true, not just within a shotgun. That's every weapon we use. Get familiar with the weapon. You use practice with different loads. Like one one, perfect. The thing that comes to my mind that I really want to improve as the Indian is my flintlock muzzle loader.

I shoot it well, but I'm not shooting it as well as I want to shoot it. And I think fine tuning the load for that gun is gonna make me that much more confident and I know that it's gonna be the Indian in the end of that. Do

Garrett Regalski: you have a big problem flinching when you

Mitchell Shirk: fire it? So right now, I think my biggest problem, flinching really isn't my problem.

I've spent a lot of time on the bench Without a load and just putting [00:34:00] priming powder in and shooting. And I've done that a few hundred times. I probably should do it a few hundred more. My biggest thing right now, believe it or not, is having confidence in my Iron Sight site picture past 50 yards.

And also having enough confidence that the load that I'm putting in the gun is gonna be, give me a consistent thing. 'cause one thing I've learned, you think about hand loading a center fire rifle, guys that are coming up with a load to try to get a group that's gonna be able to, three shot cover with a quarter or a nickel or whatever, get stuff like that.

When you're doing it with a muzzle loader, you are making a hand load every time that you load that gun. So the amount of powder the thickness of patch the weight of your ball. I, right now I shoot for hunting. I'm shooting A great Plains Hordy saot and it shoots good, but I wanna make sure that I make a load that is gonna shoot as tight as can be.

Then I think it comes down to me [00:35:00] making sure that my site picture's good. I was shooting a a peep site for a while, just 'cause I love the view of a peep site. I shoot a peep site on my bow. I love that aiming concept. The problem is I couldn't find a peep site that would hold up in the places I would hunt.

I broke two of them and I didn't wanna do it. So I'm back to, using your standard open sites and I just can't lie. I'm not the greatest shot with it. And it's, again, it comes back to me practicing and having confidence. And again, any weapon we use, that's a big deal.

Garrett Regalski: Absolutely. I know, I don't vary.

Speed. Three and a half. Number twos for geese. I shoot number fours speed, three and a half inch number. Fours,

Mitchell Shirk: ducks. What made you land on that in the first place?

Garrett Regalski: I started shooting Black Cloud when I first started, and this was back before all the, Corona started and ammo through the roof. You could buy a case of Black Cloud for 2 59 bucks.

That's two [00:36:00] 50 shots, and it'd last me about a year and a half when I first started and most of it was justing into the air. And then they didn't have black cloud for, I needed a case of ammo and it didn't have it. And I shot Rio Rios were good, but they were super dirty. Like I'd have to clean my gun four or five pounds a year.

I hardly, I think I clean my gun once a year. It's only when something falls in the mud, something that needs to be cleaned for. But then I bought a case of speed shot.

Every round I put through dirty, clean, cold, hot, never miss a beat. Pattern's good. So that's what I just stuck.

Mitchell Shirk: And that was did you do did you pattern those loads and were looking for something specific or it was just that's what the dial landed.

Garrett Regalski: That's pretty much it. As honest, as weird as it sounds, I've probably never patterned a waterfall shotgun in my life.

Okay. I just, pick [00:37:00] it out hunting if it does okay at this distance, but it does crap at this distance. I don't like it change something until I start, last year on that last day hunt, everybody knows that you pick my gun up and everybody likes to shoot far birds with it because it's an extra hole.

And I shoot big heavys, you can reach out and poke 60, 50 to 60 yards. And we had this bird last year and it was a big row of houses on our right. And this goose landed and everybody else cut loose on him on the left hand side. I'm like, I'm gonna kill that goose by the time he gets outta the spread. And Guy was sitting next to me in the A-frame.

I'm leading it, and it's still in line with the houses. And by the time got outta the range, the like in the, it was probably 65 yards. I just squeezed the trigger, fell the ground people, when we hunt, or this year I got a, so it's gonna change the cripple.[00:38:00]

The

20

implode

an extra fool. When you get a burger, 50 yards pull trigger, it's gonna fall over.

Mitchell Shirk: I just truly think it's amazing the technology and how far we've come with shotguns and load development and, I come from it from the Turkey hunting aspect 'cause that's what I do mostly. But some of the loads that we're shooting now for turkeys are absolutely insane.

And I would assume that it would have to be no different from the sm small game and waterfowl aspect of it. But you brought up a dog. So first year with a [00:39:00] dog, tell me a little bit about that. What was that process like?

Garrett Regalski: Actually I just thought three months ago and I. I can't.

So big, long story. He's goose hunt. Want. Absolutely. And he's the most driving dog I've ever seen, ever Took him pigeon hunting and he doesn't watch you. He the of the gun. Wherever the gun, that's where he's going. Soon you let him out in his pigeons. And he was, I sent him as soon as I called the first, soon as I shot the first shot and he went out, grabbed one, brought it back, went out and grabbed another before we even done, I mean it's, I think it's gonna be a good year because I know lot of blast my time spent was picking up, cripples out in field, ge so whole [00:40:00] d ballgame this year.

Mitchell Shirk: That's good. Is that is that a lab.

Garrett Regalski: Yeah, he's a two year old chocolate lab. Oh man. He just had puppies two. Oh, he got started out doing yellow. He's a two time champ. AKC certified champ. And the mom was a onetime and they just had eight chocolate lab puppies. So five available to,

Mitchell Shirk: there you go, everybody.

If you're listening to this and you're looking for you're looking for a new bird dog to train, that's give Garrett a call. He's

Garrett Regalski: a pretty good dog.

Mitchell Shirk: Good deal. Yeah. That's an exciting that every time you get some kind of improvement like that's exciting.

Garrett Regalski: I've never, I've hunted around dogs, but I've never owned one.

So it's a whole different ballgame for me. I call the shots of the blinds. Like everybody's waiting on me to say, shoot, whatever. This year, it's kind like I, what I'm gonna do, I the dog, see how he does, or I call, shoot and popups start.

He [00:41:00] knows how to hunt. He for deer, a bird together. We'll, just what the only I'm worried about is I, how many guys,

depending on how big of a feed we have, it's 6, 6, 12 guys all the time. I'm just worried about, 12 guys cutting loose on that many three and a half inch shelves, what's he gonna do Or is it not gonna them? He's just gonna go right back to what he does.

Mitchell Shirk: Do you think you'll gra, do you think you'll try to like ease into that?

The first couple go arounds?

Garrett Regalski: I'm not sure yet. Like I said, it's the play of by ear. Like we hunted, we had six guys in that pigeon hunt and he never missed a beat when we all unloaded the guns. But I dunno, just have to see it by ear, worse comes to worst, I'll put the gun down and just the dog.

I have no

Mitchell Shirk: problem. Man switching gears a little bit, I wanted to talk a little bit about PA Boys. That's the Instagram page that you're part of and a lot of big cool stuff happening there. Can [00:42:00] you can you touch base on that for us a little bit?

Garrett Regalski: In March we attended our second annual Fairfield with our new sponsor.

Calls. Calls. You're, everything came out with, they do all calls, went there three days, and that relationship like two out, we theirs back. And we've had.

Be hard for the I got

day. So it's

open archery, but if not, I might, like I said, put so I put [00:43:00] King food in and it's produced, it's, I forget, I think it's called Honey hole is the bag I use. It's all clover, and they have decimated, I double planted soy and we just picked up kicks. Choke as a sponsor. If you know anything about choke, everybody know.

And then we've had a pretty good year. We're getting names, people know who we're just up a, or, It's been good for us. We're pushing 25 k the board. Exciting

Mitchell Shirk: stuff.

Garrett Regalski: Absolutely. We're doing our own podcast actually one airs tonight with she,

Mitchell Shirk: yeah. How's the how's the podcasting game been for you? 'cause that's a whole new avenue of content,

Garrett Regalski: so it's, I don't do anything with it.

It's not my forte. I'm not guy,

but I'm guy. [00:44:00] I think we've had 10 or 12 episodes, alright.

We we got some big names,

rifles, long range rifle build. He jumping on one. Jerry Lemon used to be on, Fox is still on Fox Pro on Predator. He's one of our staff guys actually. So we got a bunch of big names and it's done pretty good. We met some names talking some about

Mitchell Shirk: on. Fantastic. Yeah, keep up the good work.

There's a lot of great content over your guys' way. I wanted to ask this question too, back, going back to waterfowl a little bit. So [00:45:00] when people in the bow hunting community and the whitetail hunting community start talking about, what is the ultimate when it comes to. North American whitetail hunting, and most people, and not everybody, most people are gonna say Iowa, Illinois, Kansas.

Yeah. Stuff like that. A lot of that, miss Midwest, I guess you'd call 'em fantasy land states, and that's kinda like in a lot of people's mind, the holy grail of whitetail hunting. So where does that land with you when it comes to goose and or duck hunting?

Garrett Regalski: Pa is not a state known for water.

Like I have, I have a, and people say water from Pennsylvania, like that's not you, that's not people. The same deer like.

It's what Flyway you're in, I should say the middle Flyway is probably the best. [00:46:00] The central Flyway is probably the best one to be in.

Canada's the best duck hunting in the world. Capital go down West Texas and East Texas and Cadillac Creekers and down there all the

Texas or East Texas or south Texas or whatever Texas is. So there's agriculture that's, that, that center

Dakota. The Dakotas a good production. I've never been there, but I won't do Arkansas. I've been there for snow east and seen the ducks there. That's incredible. And just no matter what year around, I guess we went to New York, there was ducks everywhere in east, [00:47:00] everywhere. They do some of the best snow hunting, Canada, hunting, this side of the state or this side of the us Just a matter what you're around.

Mitchell Shirk: Do snow geese get you excited as much as Canada Geese, from the sheer aspect that snow geese a lot of time are gonna be a little bit later in the season, so it's almost like second wind.

Garrett Regalski: So we I've killed one snow goose in Western Pennsylvania and it was in a group of, and we all thought was Canada.

Canada and everybody focused on soon hit the ground. But it's, there's something about I, I went Arkansas. Unplug, no limit. Shoot as many as you possibly can. That is something else. You put a 10 15 round extension tube on there and you go out and you dump a box of shell and group of birds and you just fall.

It's something, if you've never experienced it and you wanna go do it, you won't regret it one day.[00:48:00]

Mitchell Shirk: Yeah. I can't imagine I've seen videos of people doing that and the, gosh, the amount of steel shot that they fling out there in, in three and three and a half inch I feel like I would need shoulder surgery.

Garrett Regalski: The last time I went to Arkansas, I took a brand new unopened case and I home with two boxes, two singular left for a three day hunting.

Wow. But it was a big, your adrenalines going, there's thousand in front of, you're not worried about shoulder hurting. That's the last thing in your mind. But A single would come in and we'd gentlemen hunt singles and do us. So you know, you start on one side of the blind, if they miss the next person goes down, tries to clean them up, single comes in after you, volley 15 or 20 groups of shooting 10, 15, you squeeze trigger or like somebody hits not, I'm not pulling tricker anymore, it three inches and so bad.

But I, like I said, I shoot three and a half [00:49:00] that shoulder. Even around here in September, we had that big 57 shoot and we were in likes. You send that many rounds out for ge, your shoulder hurts. There's no about it.

Mitchell Shirk: Absolutely. And I, it's making me cringe a little bit. I'm still I still deal with a lot of trouble from a football injury that I had in high school.

And, if I let it go too long, any kind of jarring and jostling around that I get, man, it can flare me up and I can ha I can be laid up and be hurting for a while. And the thought of flinging somewhere between 10 and 25 rounds in a shot with a semi-automatic three and a half inch man, I, that might be maybe calls for bad, but I tell you what, I'd be a glutton for punishment.

I'd probably just keep doing it 'cause it would be so much fun.

Garrett Regalski: Yeah. You don't realize it until it's starting to get to the end. I know when we were, that hunt was something I'll never forget, ever. We, I just bought, I bought two A-frames and two other guys [00:50:00] bought one H. They were bringing new in the package.

We hurried up, we stayed up all night brushing these things in.

And we stayed up all night. I turned around my buddy's house, which was not where we were hunting everything. I, my house, got my gun, got my turned right back line, and it was two minutes after shooting Mike. Seven pack came in all seven up and it was for the first probably 10 volleys. I don't think a single bird left spread.

If it came in, died and then it was like, let's start getting the count. And it was starting to get into the thirties and forties. And we like this, we might shoot 11, 12. It was probably, we mean it was had two single come two, go ahead, shoot if you guys we'll clean up for, and if they didn't kill, we'd kill them.

So it was, we had, there was a house actually behind us and I don't think they knew we were hunting the next [00:51:00] day, but the house we had permission from. So we, that first seven pack came in, we cut loose on them and it woke them up. So they came out, they were sitting on their front porch, 75 to hundred yards behind us, drinking coffee, watching us, just massive these things.

We had one into their front yard where we were hunting and they're like, Hey, we got one down here. We got a hold of for you guys. We're like, yeah, we'll come down and get them in a minute. Let's pick, we gotta pick up 25 birds that are dead in front of us. And then a guy walked up and he's man, you guys on a hell show, like watching a hunting show.

So that

Mitchell Shirk: was, yeah, that was a pretty, not too many times you can get a live hunting show in place. I know last year when we talked, you told me about taking some new people and some younger kids and stuff, and, going forward into this season, are you doing any of that? Is there any specific hunts or timeframes you're just looking forward to a little bit more than than any other?

Garrett Regalski: The first day is always, it's always a good, last year we had. On this loaf pond and somebody beat [00:52:00] and shot in the, but even though we were there all field sure day,

but we had two kids, they hunting with us last two years and they're hooked on it. Like their older brother is the one, one of our staff guys. And he's gonna I'm going ice fishing. We're like, no you're not. Like we have a big goose feed. And one of his brothers, which was the two kids years about it, and he's no, you're not going ice fishing, you're me goose hunting.

See what happens.

Mitchell Shirk: I feel like that's too much opportunity for good content for PA boys then what? The woman's hot. Yeah,

Garrett Regalski: I know. My only, she's [00:53:00] half decent with hit, but they're seven and a half low brass. They're not three and a half inch double B and six degree and 40 mile an hour wind. That'll make you a man if you, I know you cut out in a, when it's that cold, it really makes you question if you should still be sitting out there doing it.

But it's a hit and miss some of our, some of our wives, they don't, but they bought licenses just to hunt. I bought her a duck, a 20 gauge duck gun this year. She's I wanna try duck hunting. We'll see. I know some of them, they've never, they've shot a gun, but they're not like, like my, she deer hunts so she knows what hunting, but like the other kids not.

Wants

25 geese. [00:54:00] We still, geese coming in, we'll just switch. We'll take our guns back and we'll cut and see what happens. But it's all, the birds might not be nothing suffer the during winter days.

Mitchell Shirk: Yeah. 'cause I've been in those situations where, I told you before this I love deer hunting. When it's, if I don't have a buckshot, going out duck or goose hunting is not on my mind until my buck tag is filled.

And then I've had those times where I do go ducking geese hunting. And if you get an adrenaline packed moment, it's man, that's why I wanted to do this. This is awesome. But there's so many other times and it's the same as deer hunting. You go, what am I? It questions your sanity so much and for me it's harder because I think I'm out here doing this for a stinking bird.

Garrett Regalski: Yeah. Last year where it was right around Christmas and we had eight inches of snow. The wind blowing 55 mile an hour, like it was nasty. And they're like, I don't think we're gonna hunt tomorrow guys. And I'm like, if I can get the trailer down [00:55:00] the road, we're gonna hunt. And I think four guys showed up and we a four man in maybe an, it was brutal.

I looked like the marshmallow. I had every piece of sick clothing.

Six, 10 inches thick everywhere, and it was hard to shoot a shotgun. There's so much, but we did good. Just, it's like I tell people like I'm a deer hunter. You get that one big adrenaline rush as shoot that deer. I get that 15 or 20 times all day long. So it's, I prefer to do something over deer hunting.

Don't get me wrong, I still like shooting a big buck, but I get that adrenaline rush 15 to 20 times every time geese are locked up and I the trigger it's go again and it's just back and forth.

Mitchell Shirk: Sure.

Garrett Regalski: Good. You don't have to come out close this year. You didn't come out last year. I

Mitchell Shirk: know that. Hey, this is what I will tell you.

If you want to expand on any kind [00:56:00] of activity that is not related to work or family don't get married and have kids. Yeah. And I, I say that with love because I would not change my life for any other way, but man, it is tough. Trying to plan out stuff like, perfect example this fall I was trying to figure out some timeframes when I'd like to go hunting and I just have to schedule times when I can possibly go based on what the family schedule's like and For many listening, that might sound normal.

Yeah. For me it's still fresh and it's just the new normal for me. And that could be interesting. And then the other thing too is you put that strain on family and everything else when you do go and you're trying to push hard and accomplish your goals and then to say, oh, and by the way I also, I'm gonna go goose hunting this year too.

That, that sits up. But no, it's still on my mind. I'd still really like to come out.[00:57:00] I, and I guess 'cause I can tell you I haven't been waterfowl hunting of any kind for at least five to seven years. And man, I can't say I've ever had any really overly exciting hunts. I've killed a couple birds and had some fun times, but yeah.

Never had those spreads that just make you go, this is why we goose hunt, or This is why we duck hunt.

Garrett Regalski: Absolutely. And she thinks it's the dumbest thing in the world's. Putting trail cameras up and we have 450 acres and we have probably 10 trail cameras up and, bag of corn for each camera. So that's 50 pounds.

You gotta carry 600 yards through the picket, whatever. I give you guys a whole new layer, level of credit for this stuff. I said, this isn't even the hard part. We know where the cameras are at, or all we gotta do is carry the stuff there. I said the real hard part's when you're out in the field at, 12 o'clock at night setting, 40 dozen decoys, it's six degrees and it's blowing 50 mile an hour.

You're like, this is dumb. And then it all comes together the next morning and you're like, [00:58:00] ma'am, I could do that every day. So it's just,

Mitchell Shirk: yeah, they go, I've never gone to the, I've never been an experience like that, what I would call the top end as far as major decoy sets and stuff like that. So that'd definitely be beyond my radar, but we will we'll wrap it up and hopefully we can do something like that and make another podcast out of it.

Okay. Hey, anything you wanna leave us with, Garrett? Nope, I think that's about it. Yeah, good deal. Hey everybody make sure you you follow Pa Boys on Instagram and you guys don't have any other avenues of of media other than Instagram, right?

Garrett Regalski: YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, I mean you type pa boys up on pretty much any splitter or on every social

Mitchell Shirk: media site.

Gotcha. Good deal. We'll give give those guys a follow and hey good luck with your good luck with all your hunting this fall, man. You too, buddy.

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