| Waterfowl Articles |
John N. Felsher's Waterfowl Hunting Adventures
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About 35 mallards dropped from high altitudes at the quacking
invitation of our guide, Brandon Nash.
They circled just out of range before committing to land in this pond
dotting the vast south Louisiana marshland. About seven or eight pintails
joined them, their white feathers contrasting with iridescent green heads
giving color to a cold, drab, misty morning.
The pintails slashed down just beyond the decoys in the shallow
brackish water. However, we couldn’t shoot. We needed just one duck to
fill our limit and had already limited out on mallards. We couldn’t risk going
over the mallard limit by firing at a pintail, so we waited.
We could wait a while longer. After all, we had already waited nearly
20 years since our last hunt together. Growing up running the marshes,
swamps and forests of southeastern Louisiana, Eric Holbrook and I shared
many a duck blind on cold mornings and boats on blazing hot afternoons.
Just hunting with Eric again after almost two decades was special
enough, but this day was extra special. This was my birthday and God
certainly blessed all of us with a birthday gift of excellent hunting.
After high school, I headed to college and eventually joined the Air
Force, staying for 12 years. Eric selected the Navy for his career. We kept
in touch, but rarely saw each other, much less hunted together as I
bounced from base to base. Attaining the rank of senior chief petty officer,
Eric spent most of his time navigating nuclear submarines throughout the
oceans of the world.
As adults, our travels kept us apart, but our thoughts always returned
to the many misty mornings we spent in the marshes near our hometown of
Slidell, La. On this misty morning, we reminisced about those old times
while waiting for ducks to visit our shallow pond south of Lake Charles, La.
Eric wanted to commemorate our reunion by mounting a drake pintail.
“Here comes one,” Nash said as shooting hours began. “Not a pintail,
but a spoonbill if you want him.”
I dropped the bird with one shot. Brandon soon dropped the next one
with one shot.
“After all these years, we still have never been blanked,” I said.
“Nope!” Eric remembered. “We may have set out to shoot ducks and
wound up with squirrels or went squirrel hunting and caught bass, but we
never have been skunked.”
“Eric, next duck belongs to you,” I said. “Here comes another single. It’
s not the pintail you want to put on your wall, but it’s a duck nevertheless.”
Eric missed twice.
“Out of practice?” I chided. “Brandon and I had a good streak going.
Now you messed up our average. At least you loaded your gun this time.”
“I knew you’d bring that up again,” Eric retorted. “Yes, I remember
when you dropped three blue-wings out of a flock one September morning
and I didn’t shoot because I forgot to load my gun. Yes, I remember that’s
the only action we had all morning, but I remember when you scared a pond
full of ducks early one other morning because you couldn’t wait to go to the
bathroom until after shooting hours began. They all flared when you stood
up in the blind and never came back.”
“A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do,” I replied.
“Yes, but did you have to do it right then?”
Eric eventually redeemed himself with better shooting as the morning
advanced. Still, we enjoyed needling each other just like when two teens
shared numerous duck blinds, fishing boats, pirogues and forest paths
many years ago. Misty drizzle soon broke into pouring cold rain, offering
little comfort in the cold dawn. For a time, even the ducks stopped flying.
“Felsh, remember when we used to camp out in that wooden boat your
dad made?” Eric said. “Does this rain remind you of something?”
“Sure does,” I replied. “We stretched a tarpaulin over the back while
dad crawled into the cabin he built in the bow, the one that only fit one
person just his size. We didn’t have any heaters. It was some cold in the
back under the tarp. Nothing like the comfort and food we enjoyed at the
Gum Cove Lodge last night.”
“Yeah, remember when it rained so hard that the tarp blew in and
soaked me with 50 gallons of ice water in the middle of the night,” Eric said.
“The next week, I slept on the other side of the boat and it happened
again. You didn’t get a drop on you. Just my luck.”
“Yeah, well, unload your gun and I’ll tell you that your luck is not as bad
as you thought,” I replied. “Remember how I always volunteered to erected
the frame with clamps before we stretched the tarp over the boat? If I
rigged it one way, the left side of the boat would get wet. If I rigged it the
other way, the right side got wet. The next week, you insisted on sleeping
on the other side of the boat, so I reversed the clamps.”
“What! You set me up, why I should ...”
“Wait, ducks coming in. Shoot them.”
“Can’t. You told me to unload my gun. Doesn’t matter. The way I’m
shooting today, I probably couldn’t hit them anyway.”
More ducks continued to respond to Brandon’s calling. He pulled
ducks down from nosebleed altitude and worked them over the decoys.
Before 9 a.m., we filled our limit of 12 mallards, and filled in the blanks with
teal, spoonbills and a mottled duck, but that illusive pintail still flew over the
marsh. With one duck remaining on the limit, we passed on several shots
at various species and even resisted the temptation to shoot at mallards
landing in the decoys. Eric never got a shot at the eight pintails that
coasted in with the large flock of mallards.
“Remember when you pushed me into the river on that cold Christmas
Eve after returning from wood duck hunting?” Eric asked.
“Yes,” I responded. “I also remember you vowing to get back at me if it
took the rest of your life. Well, it didn’t take that long. A couple months
later, we went fishing on a miserably cold day. After I docked the boat, you
pushed me into the freezing alligator-infested bayou.”
“We’ve done some mean things to each other,” Eric said, “but we’ve
always had fun. I’ve never had a better hunting partner. We went every
place, hunted just about everything and caught just about every type of fish
we could. If our parents had lived on the water when we were in high
school, neither one of us would have graduated.”
What had been intermittent light rain began to increase in tempo. A
cold front whistled through the area with extreme vengeance, contributing
to the excellent shooting we enjoyed. However, we couldn’t wait much
longer for that illusive pintail with such a nasty storm approaching. We
decided to take the next duck that presented a good shot and head back to
the lodge for hot coffee and delicious spicy Cajun gumbo. We didn’t wait
very long.
A lone gadwall hen appeared over the decoys. Eric fired three times,
but the bird kept going. Firing hard-hitting tungsten-matrix shot, I downed it
at long range.
“That’s how you do it, Eric,” I said. “Still out of practice?”
“No, just going easy on you for your birthday, old man,” he replied.
“Happy Birthday.”
The next day, Eric did bag his drake pintail, but he decided not to
mouth such a poor specimen. Instead, he selected an excellent drake
green-winged teal to commemorate this reunion trip.
invitation of our guide, Brandon Nash.
They circled just out of range before committing to land in this pond
dotting the vast south Louisiana marshland. About seven or eight pintails
joined them, their white feathers contrasting with iridescent green heads
giving color to a cold, drab, misty morning.
The pintails slashed down just beyond the decoys in the shallow
brackish water. However, we couldn’t shoot. We needed just one duck to
fill our limit and had already limited out on mallards. We couldn’t risk going
over the mallard limit by firing at a pintail, so we waited.
We could wait a while longer. After all, we had already waited nearly
20 years since our last hunt together. Growing up running the marshes,
swamps and forests of southeastern Louisiana, Eric Holbrook and I shared
many a duck blind on cold mornings and boats on blazing hot afternoons.
Just hunting with Eric again after almost two decades was special
enough, but this day was extra special. This was my birthday and God
certainly blessed all of us with a birthday gift of excellent hunting.
After high school, I headed to college and eventually joined the Air
Force, staying for 12 years. Eric selected the Navy for his career. We kept
in touch, but rarely saw each other, much less hunted together as I
bounced from base to base. Attaining the rank of senior chief petty officer,
Eric spent most of his time navigating nuclear submarines throughout the
oceans of the world.
As adults, our travels kept us apart, but our thoughts always returned
to the many misty mornings we spent in the marshes near our hometown of
Slidell, La. On this misty morning, we reminisced about those old times
while waiting for ducks to visit our shallow pond south of Lake Charles, La.
Eric wanted to commemorate our reunion by mounting a drake pintail.
“Here comes one,” Nash said as shooting hours began. “Not a pintail,
but a spoonbill if you want him.”
I dropped the bird with one shot. Brandon soon dropped the next one
with one shot.
“After all these years, we still have never been blanked,” I said.
“Nope!” Eric remembered. “We may have set out to shoot ducks and
wound up with squirrels or went squirrel hunting and caught bass, but we
never have been skunked.”
“Eric, next duck belongs to you,” I said. “Here comes another single. It’
s not the pintail you want to put on your wall, but it’s a duck nevertheless.”
Eric missed twice.
“Out of practice?” I chided. “Brandon and I had a good streak going.
Now you messed up our average. At least you loaded your gun this time.”
“I knew you’d bring that up again,” Eric retorted. “Yes, I remember
when you dropped three blue-wings out of a flock one September morning
and I didn’t shoot because I forgot to load my gun. Yes, I remember that’s
the only action we had all morning, but I remember when you scared a pond
full of ducks early one other morning because you couldn’t wait to go to the
bathroom until after shooting hours began. They all flared when you stood
up in the blind and never came back.”
“A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do,” I replied.
“Yes, but did you have to do it right then?”
Eric eventually redeemed himself with better shooting as the morning
advanced. Still, we enjoyed needling each other just like when two teens
shared numerous duck blinds, fishing boats, pirogues and forest paths
many years ago. Misty drizzle soon broke into pouring cold rain, offering
little comfort in the cold dawn. For a time, even the ducks stopped flying.
“Felsh, remember when we used to camp out in that wooden boat your
dad made?” Eric said. “Does this rain remind you of something?”
“Sure does,” I replied. “We stretched a tarpaulin over the back while
dad crawled into the cabin he built in the bow, the one that only fit one
person just his size. We didn’t have any heaters. It was some cold in the
back under the tarp. Nothing like the comfort and food we enjoyed at the
Gum Cove Lodge last night.”
“Yeah, remember when it rained so hard that the tarp blew in and
soaked me with 50 gallons of ice water in the middle of the night,” Eric said.
“The next week, I slept on the other side of the boat and it happened
again. You didn’t get a drop on you. Just my luck.”
“Yeah, well, unload your gun and I’ll tell you that your luck is not as bad
as you thought,” I replied. “Remember how I always volunteered to erected
the frame with clamps before we stretched the tarp over the boat? If I
rigged it one way, the left side of the boat would get wet. If I rigged it the
other way, the right side got wet. The next week, you insisted on sleeping
on the other side of the boat, so I reversed the clamps.”
“What! You set me up, why I should ...”
“Wait, ducks coming in. Shoot them.”
“Can’t. You told me to unload my gun. Doesn’t matter. The way I’m
shooting today, I probably couldn’t hit them anyway.”
More ducks continued to respond to Brandon’s calling. He pulled
ducks down from nosebleed altitude and worked them over the decoys.
Before 9 a.m., we filled our limit of 12 mallards, and filled in the blanks with
teal, spoonbills and a mottled duck, but that illusive pintail still flew over the
marsh. With one duck remaining on the limit, we passed on several shots
at various species and even resisted the temptation to shoot at mallards
landing in the decoys. Eric never got a shot at the eight pintails that
coasted in with the large flock of mallards.
“Remember when you pushed me into the river on that cold Christmas
Eve after returning from wood duck hunting?” Eric asked.
“Yes,” I responded. “I also remember you vowing to get back at me if it
took the rest of your life. Well, it didn’t take that long. A couple months
later, we went fishing on a miserably cold day. After I docked the boat, you
pushed me into the freezing alligator-infested bayou.”
“We’ve done some mean things to each other,” Eric said, “but we’ve
always had fun. I’ve never had a better hunting partner. We went every
place, hunted just about everything and caught just about every type of fish
we could. If our parents had lived on the water when we were in high
school, neither one of us would have graduated.”
What had been intermittent light rain began to increase in tempo. A
cold front whistled through the area with extreme vengeance, contributing
to the excellent shooting we enjoyed. However, we couldn’t wait much
longer for that illusive pintail with such a nasty storm approaching. We
decided to take the next duck that presented a good shot and head back to
the lodge for hot coffee and delicious spicy Cajun gumbo. We didn’t wait
very long.
A lone gadwall hen appeared over the decoys. Eric fired three times,
but the bird kept going. Firing hard-hitting tungsten-matrix shot, I downed it
at long range.
“That’s how you do it, Eric,” I said. “Still out of practice?”
“No, just going easy on you for your birthday, old man,” he replied.
“Happy Birthday.”
The next day, Eric did bag his drake pintail, but he decided not to
mouth such a poor specimen. Instead, he selected an excellent drake
green-winged teal to commemorate this reunion trip.
Cold morning in duck blind brings
back memories of great hunts
back memories of great hunts
Eric Holbrook fires at a duck in the Louisiana marshes.
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