February 2020 feels like another decade now. For a few blisteringly cold days just seven months ago, I had the privilege of helping with a conservation hunt in the Arkansas delta. The Snow Geese were migrating, Savage had early production Renegauge shotguns to test, and we invited a handful of experts from across the country to help cull the flock.
This is what we at Murray Road call work. We were up at 4:00 am, quiet in the pre-dawn darkness, rolling through the rice fields. As the first light broke, we huddled together in a blind, reading the wide sky above the Mississippi levees for the telltale silhouettes of geese. Our guides had spent long hours the night before mapping hunt locations, and had put out hundreds of decoys to lure in the flock. The rest was about patience—and handwarmers.
If you’ve never been on a snow goose, I’d highly recommend it. There’s something oddly hypnotic about the way the geese circle above and wobble-drop into the decoys. The come in—hundreds at a time—until the sky is full of geese and noise. Then comes the chaos and cacophony as 10 hunters burst from cover and empty 12 gauges as fast as they can pull the triggers.
As the dogs fetch in the birds, and the hunters debate who-shot-what, our work begins in earnest. We check cameras and inspect guns. Did we get the shots we needed? Did we make the shots we needed to make? How’s everything holding up under real world conditions? Are muddy shells ejecting cleanly? Is the lefthanded hunter activating the right-hand oriented safety? How is the camo working for concealment? Was there any indication of our presence before the command to shoot?
As the hunters settle back in the blind and refill magazines, the waiting begins again. The geese are gone, momentarily. Another flight will follow—you can see them on the horizon. They come in waves. Thousands of them, literally, and that’s why we’re here. The population of snow geese has ballooned to the point that their arctic habitat (and the habit of countless other creatures) is being stripped bare.
And so we put the Renegauges to the test. After the first morning, we cleaned all of the guns and some of the birds. We inspected the internals (of the guns—not the birds; have you ever smelled the inside of a snow goose?). After hundreds of rounds of Federal’s Speed Shok, the guts of the Renegauges were still pristine. The only obstacle that remained was the left-handed-safety issue, so we stripped down a Renegauge and swapped the safety button to the other side. After a half-an-hour search for a detent spring that did what detent springs always do, we had the safety setup for the southpaw, and everything was ready for the next morning. Though it was still early afternoon, the lodge was quiet. The hunters who were holed up, catching up on missed sleep.
If I seem a bit nostalgic, the reason is easy enough to understand. As fall rolls around, I’m gearing up again. Most of my Murray Road content creation during the great pandemic of 2020 has happened inside, in isolation. I’ve spent six long months at the helm of a laptop, Zooming. The only calls I’ve made have been on a phone. But that ends now. Murray Road is headed to Idaho for another event with Savage. We’re picking up where we left off.
Like everyone else, we’re ready. Much of what we learn about our clients’ needs comes from hands on experience with the people who use their products. We run the types of field tests that can’t be simulated in the factory’s range. We listen. We learn. And we can’t wait to get back at it. As a hunter and a content creator, I find the effort rewarding. We ice-down the beer and make the chili. We clean geese and guns. We hold lights, shoot b-roll, and fine-tune the messaging. And when the coverage hits, the work pays off. And we know it's a job well-done. But it's not time to celebrate. It's time to share, read and repeat."