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My first duck hunt, an epic tale

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Blackdog
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My first duck hunt, an epic tale

Post by Blackdog » Sat Sep 08, 2018 12:56 pm

My first duck hunt.

I was a sophomore at Little Rock University in the mid 60s and was thinking of joining a fraternity, the Pikes. I hung around their spot in the student union cafeteria/study hall/girl watching station and got to know some of the guys pretty well. I was often invited to various functions – all involving beer…that was the major draw to the Pikes.

One day a guy came to the table and said he has secured us a duck-hunting trip. It would have to be in the middle of the week, because the guide was usually booked on the weekends and we were going to get a “special price” from a frat brother if we went during the week. It would be Wednesday/Thursday and we could stay at his “hunting lodge.”

The former frat brother had flunked out of LaRue, and his pregnant girlfriend insisted he get a job. His dad owned a farm in northeast Arkansas, near Stuttgart. Stuttgart is famous for being on the duck flyway, many rice fields and a lot of duck hunters. I suppose they do agricultural things when it isn’t duck season.

Five of us ponied up $150 each for two nights at the “Hunting Lodge” with breakfast, a professional duck-hunting guide and a real honest to goodness place to hunt. Our usually way to hunt was to take a gun into the woods and anything that we saw was in mortal danger. This was going to be my first real hunting adventure.

Tuesday after class I snuck my dad’s expensive Browning semi auto shotgun and a couple of boxes of shotgun shells out of the garage and one of the guys picked me up in front of the house. With four of us in the car we were excited about the hunt. We made sure there was enough beer to keep out spirits up. It was a three hour drive to the farm.

Let’s define “farm”. To me it meant a piece of land were agricultural things happen – like raising cattle or growing cotton – as it was Arkansas I would have accepted raising pigs and growing rice. This place had none of the activities I would call “farming.” It was a large muddy parking lot with three mobile homes on it. Our guide wasn’t permitted to actually grow anything, but he could stay there for a minimal fee – that he paid for by guiding duck hunters to an adjoining piece of property. His wife was a part-time stripper in Stuttgart. I can’t honestly imagine anyone having a full time job in Stuttgart that didn’t involve pumping gas, selling booze, working at the mill or perhaps one of the hotels. Not that many people went to Stuttgart when it wasn’t duck season. Stripping was a part-time venture at best.

The frat brother met us at the gate – barbwire strung between two poles and pointed to the mobile homes, “Take your pick” they sleep six each.” After a quick inspection I came to the conclusion that “Sleeps six” was two in each bed and one each on two couches. One bathroom, no kitchen, no TV, no refrigerator. The mobile homes were the kind used by construction crews as offices, very basic and cheap.

But we were going hunting and there was still some beer to drink. It was cold that night. We sat up till about midnight smoking cigarettes and finishing off the beer. The window unit AC was “cool only.” No heat. I slept in a sleeping bag on the couch until 3am

At 3am the stripper got home and woke up the guide, who woke us up – “Have to get to the duck blind before the ducks get moving.” Six guys, five shotguns, one flashlight and several massive hang over’s. We followed the flashlight forever and finally climbed down into a pit in the rice levee. This was the “duck blind” It had a roll back roof made of camouflage material. We sat on wooden benches with our feet in about 2 inches of water. We were Duck Hunting!

At the end of the roll back roof was a small flap that the guide could peel back and watch for incoming ducks. He also used the little flap to blow his duck call through. Yes, we were duck hunting!

State law says you can shoot only between specific hours. There is a big bank clock in Stuttgart that is the official game warden time. Hunters synchronize their watches to the big clock because a shot too early or too late will draw a penalty from the wardens. It is the only thing in North East Arkansas that is timed so precisely. It marks the official sunrise and official sunset

Our start time was 5:22. My first question was “Why did we get up so early?” My second question was “When’s breakfast?” Neither question got an answer.

Lets recap. We paid $150 to drive 3 hours, sleep in an unheated trailer, get up at 3am and sit in a damp pit in the middle of rice field in North East Arkansas with shotgun and a pack of cigarettes. All the time listening to a guy blow his duck call while my head pounded from too much beer and too little sleep – yea, this was duck hunting.

Around 7am a group of ducks began to descend toward the blind. The guide said, ”Don’t look up – the whites of your eyes will scare them.” We carefully pushed the safety on our shotguns to the off position and got ready to stand and shoot at the ducks. I was smoking a cigarette and wishing it was bacon and eggs.

We waited and waited and finally the guide said “now” or something like that. We all stood up and shot out shotguns in the general directions of the ducks – and watched them all fly away. I had been smoking a cigarette and when I fired the first shot the recoil caused the burning part of my Marlboro to come off and lodge itself between the bridge of my nose and the glasses I was wearing. Ouch, ouch, ouch. I’d burned off part of my eyebrow and not hit anything.

The top rolled closed and the incessant duck calls started again. My eyebrow burn hurt and I wanted something to eat. All I was getting was incessant duck calls.

Around 9am we went back to the “Hunting Lodge”. The guide went in and woke up the stripper and asked her to cook breakfast for us. I can’t recall exactly what she said, but several four-letter words were used. I don’t think he had made breakfast arrangements with her! The frat brother/hunting guide fumbled around their trailer, found a skillet and made us breakfast – cold scrambled eggs with burned toast and half cooked bacon and coffee made from yesterday’s grounds. Yes, were duck hunting now.

The guide told us we should sleep until about 4pm then we’d go back and do the afternoon hunt. We’d have to get our own supper. The restaurants stay open till 9pm during Duck Season (I’ll bet they have a big crank on the edge of town they use to roll up the sidewalks at 9:05.)
At 4pm were back at it. The incessant duck calling, a new pack of Marlboros, and the thought of maybe getting a duck this time.

Not gonna happen for me this time. The official “don’t shoot time” was 6:55 and you might as well go home because the ducks had set their watches to that time to land in the water. And they do land in the water as you walk down the levee – they were not afraid of the whites of my eyes – they knew what time it was and how much trouble we’d be in if we fired a shot.

Someone behind me, and I don’t know who, said, “I can’t stand this” and shot straight up in the air. The guide said everyone look down so the shot won’t hurt your eyes (eyes again). We did and the shot rained down all around us for what seemed like 5 minutes. When we looked up the game warden was standing there – where did he come from? We were in the middle of a rice field 15 mines from town and here was no place he could have hidden. But there he was and we were busted. He looked at our license, inspected our shotguns for the proper 3-shot plugs and read us riot act for shooting after dark. All the time ducks were filling up the rice fields around us. The game warden threatened to confiscate our firearms (No! It was my dad’s gun that I snuck out of the house), take our ducks and fine each of us a bunch of money. As luck would have it we had not shot any ducks that day. I had a huge blister between my eyes and all our shotguns passed inspection. We got off with a stern warning.

When we got back to the “Hunting Lodge” we told the frat brother/hunting guide that we were going to dinner and we’d see him in the morning. When he went inside we piled all our stuff into the cars and drove slowly out to the highway, turned toward Little Rock and floored it. We went home and never hear from the Frat Brother/ Hunting Guide again.

I’ve never been duck hunting since.

Michael
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Travlin
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Re: My first duck hunt, an epic tale

Post by Travlin » Sun Sep 09, 2018 12:35 am

Too bad you had such a sorry experience. I have shot ducks in the Stuttgart area many times. I knew a family that lived in a small town near there and had a soybean and rice farm complete with an empty farmhouse and a 160 acre pond that was loaded with largemouth bass. We would go out to the empty farmhouse right after thanksgiving and cook our own meals and only be about a half a mile from the flooded bean field where we shot a lot of ducks. I remember when the steel shot law first took affect the locals all bought 20 gauge guns with three inch chambers so they could still use lead shot as there were no steel loads made in 20 gauge yet.
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ESquared
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Re: My first duck hunt, an epic tale

Post by ESquared » Sun Sep 09, 2018 8:45 am

Great story and even greater to hear that it didn't turn you off of duck hunting forever! Thanks for sharing!
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