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Message
re: Has anyone told stories here?
Posted on 11/20/25 at 6:48 am to canyon
Posted on 11/20/25 at 6:48 am to canyon
My first duck hunt was slightly unusual. In the summer of 1980 my dad and I re-wired a sizeable Chevrolet dealership in Atlanta. Every evening and every weekend from about March through the middle of November. Being 14 I wasn't paid more than what I could eat and of course having a roof over my head...not a terrible deal. Daddy got paid in full the Friday before Thanksgiving and he finally paid me off by flying us to Houston where my uncle picked us up and dropped us off at his cabin on Lake Sam Rayburn, complete with a 20 foot jon-boat. I never dreamed working could pay off so well!
We fished Sunday - Wednesday and left Woodville Thanksgiving morning for Galveston where another Uncle lived. We had Thanksgiving at his house and about dark a friend of his showed up and they were going duck hunting. Key phrase, "about dark". My Uncle asked us if we wanted to go and Daddy declined but I begged and he relented, letting me go with them. Again, it was now good and dark. We load up guns, my Uncles lab and his buddies Chessie, and head out of town toward the west end of Galveston Island.
I am clueless as to what is about to happen....I only knew I was going duck hunting and, having read reams of outdoor literature by the likes of Nash Buckingham I was STOKED. I had also read "Chesapeake" so I should have known what was coming but it never entered my mind.
Anyhow we get to a gate across a sand road and I get out, hold the gate, and shut it. They told me to go back and leave it open. I should have caught on then but again visions of "Moss Mallards and Mules" (Bob Brister) and "De Shoot'inest Gent'man (Nash Buckingham) were dancing through my head so I was distracted.
As soon as we drove through the gate the atmosphere in the truck changed. Dead serious and whispering was the order of the day....the dogs were trembling like it was 20 below....I did not notice we were proceeding without head lights. When the truck stopped my uncle said "get out quite...don't make a sound" and hands me a pump gun and 7 shells. Again, I am 15, I know nothing about duck hunting.
We load up QUIETLY and proceed to walk as quietly as possible until we can see a tank about 1/4 of an acre in size. At the this point they get down on their hands and knees and I do the same. We crawl to the edge of that tank....and there are ducks EVERYWHERE! They'd need a number to find a spot to land if anymore tried to get into that tank. This did not mean they weren't clouds of ducks trying...they were EVERYWHERE.
Anyway we crawl right up the edge and my Uncle explains what is about to happen. When he gives the signal they standup and UNLOAD into that mass of ducks. You could barely hear the gunshots over the cacophony of thousands of ducks simultaneously taking flight....but the deed was done. The dogs went to work and retrieved duck after duck....I don't know how many there were but it was a PILE.
I was dumbstruck. I remembered the market gunning stories in "Chesapeake" but thought it was all just fiction. It was not...we had more or less done exactly what they did back when a brace of Canvasbacks were worth $10 in a Baltimore Hotel. I never fired a shot. Not out of any sense of propriety....I was struck dumb by what were doing.
Of course there wasn't time to reflect in the moment...when you have committed a crime of that nature instinct kicks in and getting the hell out of dodge is priority. We rounded up the birds, jumped in the truck and hightailed it out of there, straight through the open gate and away we flew like the rat bastards we were. We got back to the house and my Dad asked how it went....I told him what we had done, almost in tears. He claims to this day he had no idea what their plan was...he thought they were going scouting for the next morning. We drove back to Woodville.
That is the first of 2 times I have broken a game law. The second time was the result of a Dutch double on the 15th (and 16th) dove on a hot dove field in North Alabama about 10 years later.
As a side note my Uncle's friend who was with us got busted at a bar a few years after this with a bed full of Canvasbacks he had ambushed in the same manner. He had taken drunk at the bar and his cantankerous old Chessie bit a man and when the police showed up they found a bed full of Cans. He lost his truck, his gun and paid a big fine. That'll teach him.
We fished Sunday - Wednesday and left Woodville Thanksgiving morning for Galveston where another Uncle lived. We had Thanksgiving at his house and about dark a friend of his showed up and they were going duck hunting. Key phrase, "about dark". My Uncle asked us if we wanted to go and Daddy declined but I begged and he relented, letting me go with them. Again, it was now good and dark. We load up guns, my Uncles lab and his buddies Chessie, and head out of town toward the west end of Galveston Island.
I am clueless as to what is about to happen....I only knew I was going duck hunting and, having read reams of outdoor literature by the likes of Nash Buckingham I was STOKED. I had also read "Chesapeake" so I should have known what was coming but it never entered my mind.
Anyhow we get to a gate across a sand road and I get out, hold the gate, and shut it. They told me to go back and leave it open. I should have caught on then but again visions of "Moss Mallards and Mules" (Bob Brister) and "De Shoot'inest Gent'man (Nash Buckingham) were dancing through my head so I was distracted.
As soon as we drove through the gate the atmosphere in the truck changed. Dead serious and whispering was the order of the day....the dogs were trembling like it was 20 below....I did not notice we were proceeding without head lights. When the truck stopped my uncle said "get out quite...don't make a sound" and hands me a pump gun and 7 shells. Again, I am 15, I know nothing about duck hunting.
We load up QUIETLY and proceed to walk as quietly as possible until we can see a tank about 1/4 of an acre in size. At the this point they get down on their hands and knees and I do the same. We crawl to the edge of that tank....and there are ducks EVERYWHERE! They'd need a number to find a spot to land if anymore tried to get into that tank. This did not mean they weren't clouds of ducks trying...they were EVERYWHERE.
Anyway we crawl right up the edge and my Uncle explains what is about to happen. When he gives the signal they standup and UNLOAD into that mass of ducks. You could barely hear the gunshots over the cacophony of thousands of ducks simultaneously taking flight....but the deed was done. The dogs went to work and retrieved duck after duck....I don't know how many there were but it was a PILE.
I was dumbstruck. I remembered the market gunning stories in "Chesapeake" but thought it was all just fiction. It was not...we had more or less done exactly what they did back when a brace of Canvasbacks were worth $10 in a Baltimore Hotel. I never fired a shot. Not out of any sense of propriety....I was struck dumb by what were doing.
Of course there wasn't time to reflect in the moment...when you have committed a crime of that nature instinct kicks in and getting the hell out of dodge is priority. We rounded up the birds, jumped in the truck and hightailed it out of there, straight through the open gate and away we flew like the rat bastards we were. We got back to the house and my Dad asked how it went....I told him what we had done, almost in tears. He claims to this day he had no idea what their plan was...he thought they were going scouting for the next morning. We drove back to Woodville.
That is the first of 2 times I have broken a game law. The second time was the result of a Dutch double on the 15th (and 16th) dove on a hot dove field in North Alabama about 10 years later.
As a side note my Uncle's friend who was with us got busted at a bar a few years after this with a bed full of Canvasbacks he had ambushed in the same manner. He had taken drunk at the bar and his cantankerous old Chessie bit a man and when the police showed up they found a bed full of Cans. He lost his truck, his gun and paid a big fine. That'll teach him.
2
Posted on 11/20/25 at 7:30 am to AwgustaDawg
I remember one tank in a fallow field that was a leftover storage pit that always held water for the longest time. A couple of my cousins tell us yes, the mallards are thick on that tank. All we have to do is park and quickly and quietly run crawl to the edge. Lots of trees and trash growing around the edges.
Sure enough me and my older brother and the cousins hustle out to the edge and creep up the sides and behold a couple dozen green heads goobering around the edges in and out of a bunch of cattails. The explosion of birds and guns was impressive. After all that I think we picked up 2-3 ducks. Never had that happen again.
Sure enough me and my older brother and the cousins hustle out to the edge and creep up the sides and behold a couple dozen green heads goobering around the edges in and out of a bunch of cattails. The explosion of birds and guns was impressive. After all that I think we picked up 2-3 ducks. Never had that happen again.
Posted on 11/20/25 at 9:44 am to canyon
quote:
Thanks man. Memorable for sure. Can't tell you how many times I've had a hawk hit a duck decoy and everyone says, What the hell?! Did you see that?
I was fortunate / unfortunate enough to hunt the Columbia River in SE Washington State 4 seasons and we had eagles in the decoys every hunt. Sometimes multiple eagles over the decoys and of course every once in a while one would make a move and try to get a decoy. These were young birds and you could tell by their actions that it pissed them off no end for those ducks to ignore them.
I say fortunate / unfortunate because there is 130+ miles of river on public land in this area and 90% of it is some of the finest waterfowl habitat in North America and 90% of that 90% is perfectly suited for waterfowl hunting, perfectly safe and in every way suitable for hunting. Of that 100 miles or so of river that is on public land, is suitable waterfowl habitat and suitable for hunting, about 5 miles is open when the season is open and another 20 or so miles is open on Saturdays and closed during the rest of the week and the other 75 miles or so is just closed to all waterfowl hunting. Not only is the public land closed but almost ALL of the privately owned land is closed. This area holds more ducks in the winter than any area I have even been to in the US and I have hunted every flyway in the US....it is damn near as thick with ducks and geese as Saskatchewan....and there is a MASSIVE area that should be open to hunting but the state funnels a shite ton of people from all over the PNW and the nation into a small area and we all know what happens.....that small area is over hunted, birds quit using it, hunters get frustrated and foolishness ensues.
Posted on 11/20/25 at 11:00 am to canyon
quote:
I remember one tank in a fallow field that was a leftover storage pit that always held water for the longest time. A couple of my cousins tell us yes, the mallards are thick on that tank. All we have to do is park and quickly and quietly run crawl to the edge. Lots of trees and trash growing around the edges.
Sure enough me and my older brother and the cousins hustle out to the edge and creep up the sides and behold a couple dozen green heads goobering around the edges in and out of a bunch of cattails. The explosion of birds and guns was impressive. After all that I think we picked up 2-3 ducks. Never had that happen again.
Once upon a time many many years ago I was active in competitive duck calling and got to be good friends with a guy who eventually became a world champion and a champion of champions. I would, from time to time, take some of his clients when he had too many and we wound up hunting a bunch together over the years. We were in a rice field pit one morning and nothing but snow geese were flying....and doing what snows do, funneling into an adjacent field. We joked about "Arkansasing" those geese and eventually decided it wasn't the worst idea LOL....and started sneaking up on those geese like a couple of house cats stalking a mouse. We got about 30 yards from the outer egde of them and decided it was as close as we would get....and let fly. We did not cut a feather LOL.
Another time me, the duck caller above, a man who eventually became the director of the Georgia DNR and another man who won several state duck stamp contests and came close several times to winning the federal contest were in a duck hunting lodge and after shooting a limit of birds the artist and the DNR man mentioned they had pen raised pheasant and we ought to shoot a few. We paid the folks that ran the lodge and about 2 hours later the artist and the DNR man was crawling through rice stubble trying to get the pheasants to fly LOL....they absolutely would not get off the ground. Me and the duck caller and the "guide" were about to fall over dead from laughing at these 2 prominent figures in the outdoor world crawling on their hands and knees trying to flush pheasants that couldn't or wouldn't fly.
The DNR man was on another trip with me and 4 others in Southern Illinois one year and we were headed to a local club to have a few beers. Out in the middle of NOWHERE Illinois. Came to a dead end and the van headlights shined across a cut corn field and a MASSIVE buck, looked like a good elk and a damn good whitetail, was standing about 50 yeards from the van. One of the guys said "Man, I wish I could get drawn for a tag up here" to which the DNR man said "Hell, I wish I had my rifle and Q Beam!"
Posted on 11/20/25 at 11:14 am to canyon
I can’t remember the exact year, maybe 86-87’. I was a teenager and loved pirogue hunting ducks in Dorcheat Bottoms near Cotton Valley. We killed mostly woodies but occasionally a few mallards. We had a series of strong cold fronts that brought a lot of rain to the bottoms. The water was so high in the bottoms that we had to park our truck on the side of Hwy 371 and slide our pirogue s down the embankment and we paddled down a pipeline into the bottoms. Me and my buddy split up. One of us went north and the other south of the pipe line. Immediately I killed a couple of woodies and was “done” but I started hearing mallards up in the flooded timber. I eased up in a flooded flat and it was full of mallards. I’d never seen them like that before in there so I shot a couple of drakes. I was over the limit and was pretty nervous but I keep hearing more mallards on the water up ahead. I also noticed the sky was full of ducks working down in the the timber holes and I couldn’t believe what I saw. I kept shooting till I had 14 mallards, mostly green heads and 6 wood ducks. Way over my limit. I could hear my buddy up the creek shooting but not as much as me. I got really scared and had to finally unload my old 870 and lay it in the bottom of the pirogue to keep from shooting more ducks. I left there and found my buddy. He had 6 woodies himself. We had 26 ducks between us and knew green jeans probably heard us shooting. We devised a plan to go hide all but our limit of ducks on the other side of the creek bottom about a mile from where we launched. We came out with our limit loaded up and drove way around to the other side and picked up our stashed ducks. I look back and think how stupid that was and that it was a federal matter. That was about 40-41 years ago but I still think back to that magical day often. Thousands of mallards in those bottoms and now you can’t hardly see a woodie in there. I would never think about doing such stupidity now but every year at the first sure enough cold front I look up to the skies and reminisce the magical day in that bottom.
Posted on 11/20/25 at 11:24 am to mudcat tiger
quote:
mudcat tiger
wish I could’ve been there.
Posted on 11/20/25 at 1:18 pm to canyon
Look in the stickied thread. Here's one about cool stories.
Posted on 11/20/25 at 3:08 pm to AlxTgr
You should copy and paste your bow story here
Posted on 11/20/25 at 3:25 pm to AwgustaDawg
quote:
Of course there wasn't time to reflect in the moment...when you have committed a crime of that nature instinct kicks in and getting the hell out of dodge is priority.
Brings to mind a story my uncle told me. He had about a 300 acre rice field north of Jennings, La. He commonly gave permission for people to hunt and when hunting for food, they would hunt at night. I'm going to assume the story is from the late 1950s to early 1960s. Anyway he and a group of several men spread out in the field and waited for the ducks under a full moon. My uncle was on his own and not with the other group. At some point flames erupted from the shotguns. And soon after flames erupted from flares federal wildlife agents launched. My uncle made himself part of the mud along a levee and they never found him. The rest were apprehended. I think he got a couple of green heads before the wardens showed up.
I became an avid duck hunter but was too young to hunt his farm and then he sold it. It would have been cool though to have had the chance to hunt his farm in a leveed and flooded field out of a pit blind.
I have on a couple of occasions been in the marsh or flooded timber after sunset. A day can change with hardly any duck activity to piles flying in after sunset. I generally unloaded at sunset though. But the sound of ducks calling, wings and splashing after dark is amazing.
Posted on 11/20/25 at 7:27 pm to The Torch
I had some of my favorite hunts down there in my younger years, and one that almost cost me and two friends our lives. One hell of a fine duck hole back in the day. I hope it is still good for the younger generation to enjoy!
Posted on 11/21/25 at 6:12 am to Arbengal
quote:
My favorite thing about being in the woods is that you never know what you might experience
Amen brother
Posted on 11/21/25 at 6:58 am to Arbengal
quote:
almost cost me and two friends our lives
I hear you, we were probably 18/19 years old that time we went and only saw one other boat all day due to the conditions, If we would have had any hiccups it could have gotten bad.
I'd put my foot in some asses if my teenager tried to pull that crap.
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