Scott Threinen is the owner of Molt Gear and the man behind the “Bad Grammer” CD/DVD and more recently the “Stage Grammer” DVD and known by many around the waterfowl community. Scott is a member of the Waterfowler TV Elite Team and Tim Grounds Championship Call staff member. He is also a very accomplished contest caller and Canada goose guide as well.
So let’s jump right into this… when and where did it all happen, when did you become a waterfowler? Who sucked you into this fowl world? Tell me about how it all began.
Scott: It happened probably when I was 10 or 11 years old. No one in my immediate family was a hunter… no cousins, no uncles, or anyone down the line. The person who actually got me into waterfowl hunting was one of my older sister’s boyfriends. One day he asked me if I wanted to go out behind the family farm and set out a couple goose decoys to see what happened, so my first time out there I didn’t carry a gun, I just followed him. He was 16 or 17 at the time and we were set up in a field behind the farm. He pulled burlap up over me and I think we had 9 Styrofoam decoys with wooden stakes; I have no idea where he got them.
Next thing I knew, he was saying get down and cover up, I looked up and see some geese about a mile and a half away and I thought that was close at the time. He then started making goose sounds on an old call and when I heard that I was hooked, I thought that was the coolest thing that I’d ever heard – to reproduce a sound like that which geese make. We didn’t get close to killing anything at all, but I was hooked. Just being out in the field and when he said to get down and cover up, it was so intense… I was hooked form there.
What was it like growing up on a farm in Minnesota?
Scott: Well… a lot of work I guess you could say. With Minnesota there is always a change of seasons like where you’re at, which is cool. Living on a farm, you have hundreds of acres, so we were always outside doing something. What was cool about it and how you can translate things here is that you were always around animals – cows or horses or chickens… and what was cool is seeing how animals actually interact with other animals and especially other species of animals. When you sit there and you are around them every single day you learn that they do certain things we do and we do certain things they do. You can translate a lot of that into waterfowl hunting seeing how they are and how they act and put that towards what you do in the field.
Growing up on a farm was awesome… most kids have a swing set in the back yard, but instead I had a thousand acres to play on and we had 4-wheelers and all that stuff. It also taught you a lot about hard work in the summers and getting up before school… did a lot of bailing hay. There is a lot to it and I’d never trade that experience for anything.
I heard that the Cleveland Indians drafted you out of high school – is that true? What was playing professional baseball like? Did playing baseball help or hurt you in becoming a “professional” waterfowler?
Scott: Yeah… it was awesome. It gives a guy a chance to really get out. From spring training in Florida to all the places I played in the summer. Coming from small town of like 850, right out of high school, being 18-20 years old, getting to travel, learning how to live and exist with a group of guys and seeing all these different cities. You got to see a lot of the country.
Playing professional baseball in the minor leagues is kind of a grind, which makes it become a job, but when you sit down and look at it, you wake up and every day you get to play baseball. The people you meet, the fans, the things you see on the field, and it was all just a great experience. I wouldn’t want to have it taken away. I met a lot of good people.
It all meshed real well; the baseball season started the end of February with spring training and ended in mid-September, which gave me time to waterfowl hunt when I got home. Well I was playing baseball; all I was thinking about was waterfowl hunting it seemed like, so I don’t think that waterfowl helped my baseball career, if anything it may have hurt it. When I would travel to the different cities, during the day you didn’t have much to do, so I would travel around town to see if there were any local ponds with geese on them. I guess waterfowling kept my mind off baseball, which could have been a good thing because I didn’t think about it too much. It worked out well because I could do both at full capacity.
Calling Canada geese…you’re a two time World Live Goose Calling Champion. Are you still competing regularly? What are your goals as far as competition goose calling go?
Scott: I am still calling competitively. I used to go to about every contest, but I’ve cut back now. Now to call in a contest, you have to practice and prepare yourself for it and with the other things I’ve involved with and the other commitments that life deals as you grow older it cuts away from your practice time, that is why you see all these 15-16 year old kids that have all the time in the world to practice. So I’ve cut back on the number of contests I’m in and try to really focus on the ones I am in.
As far as goals and stuff, my goal is to obviously win any competition I’m in. I don’t want to be in a contest just to exist and be a part of it; I want to try to win it. If that is a regional around here or the World goose winning both would be great. I would like to win one more Live Championship, I’d like to win the World Championship one of these years and keep going from there. I’ll keep going as long as I have fun with it. It’s a unique kind of art/sport and you meet a lot of great guys doing it.
Now for those of us who aren’t competition callers, what is the difference in a standard routine and a “Live” goose routine? What makes you excel at the “Live” goose?
Scott: Sure, the name kind of says it right there, in the standard routine you have kind of a structure and you have to paint a picture in the judge’s mind of what’s going on. With the standard routine you’re going to greet the geese, you’re going to lose them, you’re going to give them a comeback and bring them back around and then finish them. You have to get all of the different segments and parts of the routine to do well. With a live goose routine you can throw all that out the window, you don’t have to follow any routine at all. Basically you what it boils down to is to sound like a goose or a bunch of geese. It’s a totally different concept because there is nothing to follow and it’s up to the imagination on the caller’s side. It allows you to just be like geese, sound like geese, you don’t have to go fast, you don’t have to bring them around, and you just need to sound like a goose. The biggest difference is there is no structure and you are allowed a lot of freedom with the live side.
I think maybe some of it is creativity and putting some different sequences together, but I think the biggest part of it is being around geese so much and listening to geese. There are a lot of guys out there that can sound like a lot of geese, but there aren’t many who can sound like one goose. If you had to have one sound that had to sound exactly like a goose, how many people can really do that? It’s much different from a standard routine where you are showing constant power, constant flow, nothing is choppy, where live stuff you might be quiet for a couple seconds or throw something out there totally off the wall. So I guess really just being around geese and always trying to mimic them since I’ve started calling. I was a hunter 10-11 years before I got into contests, which is where it comes from.
How did you get involved with competition goose calling?
Scott: Kind of by mistake, I really didn’t know what contest goose calling was, like I said I grew up in a small town on a farm and goose hunted with my buddies on the weekends, so I didn’t really even know it took place. I think it was in ’02, when one of the guides who guided for us invited us down to Southern Illinois where he was from for a weekend in January. It happened to be the same weekend as the old Avery International which was down in Marion Illinois and when we where there, he told us about it, so we said heck, let’s go check it out.
I think Tim Grounds won it that year and Kelley Powers was second and it was just unbelievable to hear what those guys did on a call. I really had no one around me at home to associate as a caller and those guys were just amazing. It inspired me to be a better caller and a contest caller. The whole thing was just really cool and very unique.
Let’s talk about “Bad Grammer”. It was initially released as an audio CD and then later a DVD. What drove you to produce “Bad Grammer” in the first place and what made you put together the DVD version ? Did you really record the CD in your kitchen?
Scott: Well what pushed me at least a little bit was contest calling to be honest with you. When I got into contest calling, started doing some things and had a little success at it, I started doing some other things with the sounds of a goose. Being around geese all the time, I tried to do some of these sounds in contests and usually the judges butchered me up on it saying it sounded nothing like a goose and they’d never heard a goose do that before. There are a lot of different sounds a goose will make when it’s flying or feeding or in the spring, which is what really drove me to put something out there where guys could hear these different sounds. There is a lot more out there than just a honk, a cluck and a moan. I know that is the old adage that all the other notes are based around them, but a goose just had a very complex vocabulary and some of the things that come out of them are by mistake. A lot of time it’s when geese are agitated and stuff like that when you hear those things you can’t really believe a goose can do.
The DVD version was driven by the people who bought the CD version. Obviously when you listen to a CD, you’re just listening to it, there is no visual and you are learning off of just sound. Some things you can’t just learn off of sound alone, you need a visual. So basically it was consumer driven and a lot of people learn through a visual better than a sound/CD.
Absolutely, it was recorded in my kitchen. With the CD, we never intended it to be what it became… initially we had 15 copies made and we made them by hand at a buddy’s house. It really was never intended to be sold at a public level or end up in a retail store. We initially sent it to a couple friends, who then sent it to a couple of their friends and the next thing you know, Tim Grounds has one and he thinks it’s great and it just kind of took off after that.
The follow up to “Bad Grammer” was “Stage Grammer” a DVD devoted to competition goose calling. This seems to be a very small market, so what were you thinking when you decided to produce this DVD?
Scott: You know that is exactly what it is and even with Bad Grammer you really have to be serious into goose calling to go out and get it. Stage Grammer, you are right, that is a very, very small market and we knew that going into it. We had no intentions of blowing the wall down with sales or anything, but what we wanted to do was kind of give back. Contest calling has been really good to me and I know when I was getting into contest calling and trying to put a routine together it was one of the most frustrating things I ever had to do in my life. Being able to now have a media resource available to take them through the steps, it helps the learning curve. So our intentions were to help grow the sport a little bit, make contests bigger, and bring more people into them. I mean some of the best goose callers I know, have never blown in a contest because they have never figured out how to put a routine together.
The style of your videos is very unique. You use some different concepts and humor throughout them, what made you choose this style of instruction?
Scott: I wouldn’t say I made or chose any style; I just went with us being us. Just being me and Big Craig just being Craig. I think there are a lot of people on videos and TV where you kind of question if they are acting or if that is really how they are. I mean we are marketing to goose hunters, not to professional organizations. We always say that anyone who hangs around with us would understand that. As far as the teaching that is just the way we’ve been taught a little bit and we think it’s the best way to do it.
So what’s next for you and Molt Gear, any more products in the works or in the planning stages? Let’s hear about the upcoming DVD and what we can expect to see.
Scott: Well I currently editing away on a new hunting video and it’s not going to be a hunting video alone or an instructional video alone, and it’s not going to be an informational video alone, it’s going to be a combination of all three. It’s going to be a series of videos with the first taking an inside look at decoys. There are a lot of different decoys out there and there are always questions raised about which are the best and why they cost so much. What we are going to do is stack decoys up against the real thing, the goose. We are going to get into why we set up the way we do and have a lot of hunting too; kind of a unique look at goose hunting.
Molt Gear was never meant to be anything special, but guys are kind of liking it, so we are going to keep plugging away. The new video should be down with editing next week and out soon after that. We’ll also being coming out with some apparel.
Besides running Molt Gear, making videos, and contest calling, I also understand you’ve been guiding Canada goose hunts. How long have you been guiding?
Scott: Well I actually started guiding goose hunts when I was 14 years old. My mom used to bring me into town, so I could guide goose hunts and call for people, so I’ve been doing it for a long time. I continued doing it during the off season of baseball as well. Since I’ve gotten into other stuff, I don’t guide as much as I used to due to the time constraints.
We’ll be doing a little different thing this year that we tried last year where it’s kind of an instructional thing for guys who have never been on a hunt before. Still a guided hunt, but will offer a lot of instructional pieces before, during and after the hunt. Some calling lessons after the hunt as well. This won’t be a full time deal, but offered for just a couple weekends this coming season.
How do you like guiding? How can someone book a hunt with you?
Scott: Guiding allows you to meet a lot of different people and share experiences that you have. It allows people to get away from their daily life and experience something they may not get to do much. A lot of these people you take out live in a city and they may not get out hunting a lot. To take guys out and hear them rant and rave after a flock of geese came in is pretty cool. It’s something you can be proud of. Taking kids out is awesome too.
Yep, they can just call me up; the info is right on the website there.
Outside of creating waterfowl media and guiding, do you have any other jobs or businesses?
Scott: I do, we run a fertilizing business in Rochester, MN. We do fertilizing, total kills, herbicide control in a lot of residential and commercial properties. We start mid-April and go to about the middle October, so kind of the old baseball fit, which I like. Keeps me busy during the summer.
Waterfowler TV… I read that you are the newest member of the Elite Team. Tell me about filming with the Waterfowler TV guys? How many shows are you in?
Scott: You know filming with those guys is interesting because you really don’t film as a group. Basically what we did this year was filmed for our projects and then sent them in video as well. We did not get to film with anyone else this year due to our location and timing. We sent them some of our best stuff, so we’ll have to wait and see what they use. Actually filming with those guys is something being worked out for the future.
They have 26 weeks during the 3rd and 4th quarter of the year with 13 episodes that each run two different weeks, so we’ll be on later this year (2009). Each episode airs three times during the week.
How did you get hooked up with Waterfowler TV?
Scott: Man… I don’t even know. It was one of those deals where they contacted me to see if I was interested and some of my close friends are on the team…Tim, Hunter, Kelley and Barnie Calef. Heck, I couldn’t turn it down, it’s one of the best waterfowling shows out there and one I’ve watched over the years. I guess getting hooked up with them was just a product of who I know.
Let’s start to wrap things up, just a couple more questions for you. Do you typically stick around Minnesota all season or do you travel a lot to hunt? Where else do you go?
Scott: You know I do not do a lot of traveling; I stick around Minnesota a lot and even my home town. The reason for that is I just love hunting around here a lot, which might be different from a lot of guys, but I’ve been a lot of places to hunt…everywhere from Peace River, to Tennessee, to Maryland, to Colorado. Just the geese that we have here are very smart, educated, you’re hunting in bad weather and bad conditions…it’s just what hunting is to me. If I do travel, I go to Wisconsin and Northern Illinois, then maybe to Tennessee to duck hunt with Kelley Powers.
For those of us who have listened to your CD or seen your DVDs, what’s up with “Big” Craig? You guys make a good team and he’s quite a character, so give us a little on him.
Scott: Big Craig is a guy that I met 5 or 6 years ago and he used to work at Sportsman’s Warehouse up in St. Cloud, MN. There was a calling contest there one day and he had never blown in a contest before and had just started out. He asked me for some help and I did…we first became friends on the phone, then he got into contest goose calling with me. When he graduated from college, he found a job in the Rochester area and moved in with me and we lived together for 4 years and hunted together since 04-05 becoming real good friends. We blended well together having similar personalities and humor.
It was actually sad this year, as my girlfriend moved in, as she got a teaching job here, so we had to move Big Craig out. He’s now out on his own, but I have to say it was a very, very good trade on my end. Big Craig moved about two blocks away from me where he bought a house and he’s got a good job, so we pretty much see each other all the time. Very likeable guy, real smart, good goose hunter and good goose caller…we do a lot of hunting together.
Scott, thanks very much for your time today and just one last thing before I let you go; Can you provide our readers with a tip on how to sound like live geese in the field?
Scott: Good question. A tip I can give are many callers are caught up with calling to the geese, don’t call to the geese, sound like geese. The best way to sound like geese is to have a goose rhythm. The people who are good at calling geese, don’t think about what they are blowing, how many times they repeat a sequence, they just break it down to sound like geese. Geese hear a lot of guys call to them, but they don’t hear guys calling like geese.
For more information about Scott Threinen or if you want to order one of his videos or book a hunt check out www.moltgear.com (you can also pick up some cool Molt Gear T-shirts there). You can also see him on Waterfowler TV or visit www.waterfowler.TV.
