This story was originally published in the September 1955 issue of Outdoor Life. It has been edited lightly to fit modern standards.
Nearly 35 years ago the late P.C. (Perry) Hooker walked into our sporting-goods emporium in Memphis, Tennessee, and handed me eight unmarked boxes of 12 gauge shotgun shells with one hand and a surprisingly heavy leather gun case with the other.
Perry, who represented an ammunition company, said, “Buck, here are some hulls and a gun the big boss wants you to test on geese and ducks. There’s No. 4 shot in all the shells. but half of them are regular 2 3;4 -inchers and the rest are three inches long-Magnums. They’re all loaded with a new fangled, slow-burning powder that’s supposed to give more velocity and denser, shorter shot strings. The gun’s an ‘over-bored’ Magnum. Neither the gun nor the shells will be on the market any time soon. The boss wants you to test them and give him a full report as soon as you can. Mark it ‘personal and confidential.’”
“I’ll try them at Wapanoca, for a starter,” I replied. “Irma is driving by for me in about an hour and we’re going on out to draw for blinds. Tell the boss I’ll give his wares a thorough test. starting tonorrow.”
In those days, Wapanoca had perhaps the heaviest waterfowl concentrations, on its 3,000 acres of open water and riparian marsh, of any area in the country. Lying in a sweeping bend of the Mississippi River, its inviting expanses of lush aquatic foods, saw-grass pockets, cypress and pin-oak flats, willowed bays, and sequestered lagoons had attracted migrations since time immemorial. The lake is in Arkansas, near Turrell, but that’s only 25 miles northwest of Memphis.
Late that long-gone November afternoon, Irma and I made a reckless 40-mile-an-hour drive over a marvelous new gravel road and turned in at the palatial clubhouse at dusk, in time for Wapanoca’s greatest ceremony-the draw for paddlers and stands. That particular evening ( so says my worn, leather-bound diary) 13 members were in on the draw. It was something of a ritual at Wapanoca —— this drawing to allot shooting blinds. First came the assignment of guides, who were as expectant and keen as anyone, huddled at the far end of the living room, near the cavernous fireplace to learn “who drawed ‘em.”
Be sure the paddlers had their likes and dislikes as possible assignments. That evening Wapanoca’s president presided as master of the shake-rattleand-roll. Each guide ‘s name was numbered for the season. The 10 ball would be Moses, say, or Osborne; the seven, Columbus. I was lucky and drew Aaron. A better shooting or fishing companion never lived. We were of almost identical ages and had roamed the outdoors together since boyhood. Aaron’s father had paddled for mine. He was tall, strong, a keen-eyed woodsman and gun-pointer. You could set your watch and shove in your stack on Aaron.
Then we drew for blinds. The lucky guy who got the number-one ball huddled exasperatingly with his pusher until they agreed on the most promising location. The rest of us waited, glowering. There were 13 blinds listed that evening. I drew number 13. One by one the president marked off the first 12 selections.
But one remained — an area named Treadwell’s, after a pioneering member.It was a three acre lake opening off the southeastern end of Big Lake and three miles from the boat landing. The come-lately outboard motors were not permitted to frighten Wapanoca’s concentrations. You rowed or poled and followed shorelines. In the center of Big Lake was nearly a square mile of food and refuge.
Wapanoca’s president said, in his cold, discouraging banker’s voice. “Sorry, Buck, you can’t get a boat into Treadwell’s. The water’s too low. Nobody’s been able to shoot there this season.”
“Well,” said I, longing to cleave him amidst, “since you’re not inviting us to share the wealth of your number-two draw, isn’t Treadwell’s ours if we want it?”
“Yep,” he grunted, shuffling the papers and closing the files. “You’re welcome to try your lucky 13.”
Later that night, in a game of red dog, the banker had a lesson in poetic justice. Then, before turning in, I gave the new 9 3/4 pound Fox “over-bored” Magnum a careful check for stock length and drop at comb and heel. It measured just about like my 34-inchtubed Parker. Like the Parker, its trigger pull was light and smooth as a mouse’s ear. Nevertheless, I decided to take both guns with me the next day.
Next morning Aaron loaded my light boat with three dozen hollow-cedar mallard decoys; a box holding ammunition, grub, and camera; both my gun ; and Irma’s 12 gauge Model 97 Winchester. Huge Pat, the Chesapeake, hopped onto my prow and I manned the oars. Aaron poled Irma in a larger craft. In that way we traveled faster and could use my smaller boat for shallower waters if need be.
With other craft spreading to stations through Little and Big Lakes, the din of rising geese and ducks was almost deafening.
It was a cold north-windy day. With the wind on our tails, we made the entrance to Treadwell’s in an hour. By then guns were thumping and thudding at blinds closer to the clubhouse. Geese rose in clouds from the refuge, bound for near-by Mississippi River sandbars. Above the open expanse of Big Lake wove sky-obscuring masses of resettling ducks.
Shallow run-out water drained through willows shielding the entrance to Treadwell’s. There we cached the larger boat and transferred Irma to my craft. With a tow rope around a paddle’s stem, Aaron and I sledded the light boat for 200 yards through shallows and switch willows. There was six inches of water, which was plenty. When we breasted into the open, Treadwell’s literally arose en masse and flew away.
After pushing the boat into a buttonwillow clump, Aaron scattered two dozen of the mallard decoys. Meanwhile I lopped off limbs and fashioned a hide so that Irma, with the north breeze at her back, could shoot sitting or standing. Next I raised and tightened my hip boots, put a box each of the new shells—regulars and Magnums—into the back of my shooting coat, and picked up the Fox gun. Pat, alerted by such preparations, watched my every move.
Then Aaron seated himself on the prow, unlimbered his duck call, and grinned. “You fixing to wade up to Goose Hole, ain’t you?” he asked.
“Yep, I haven’t been in there for more than 20 years. but looks as if every duck we’ve moved out of here is drifting in that direction. If so, I’ll drift ’em back; if I’m wrong, I’ll be back shortly. You and Miss Irma stay here-and let no guilty duck escape.”
With a sack of mallard decoys over my shoulder, I clucked to Pat and we began the wade. I had shot in Goose Hole many a time before becoming of age. But, in the years since I’d joined the club, no one seemed to go to Goose Hole. Probably few members knew how to get there, for it required some fairly tough wading.
Reaching a low intervening ridge, I hit off through pin-oak flats and high willows. Overhead, scads of fowl poured toward Goose Hole. The going was fairly easy and I soon spotted the light of an opening and heard the muffled rumblings of crowded, feeding waterfowl. Pat heard it too, and grinned the way dogs do. As we advanced through head-high willows, the rumble deepened and Pat slunk more closely at heel.
At the edge of the willows I peered out across Goose Hole-four acres of open water that was now a solid mass of chattering waterfowl. Pat and I stood within 15 feet of 1,000. Over the mass, other flocks hovered looking for lighting space. A sight to gladden the heart of a nature lover, it called for a sense of sportsmanship. Two shots into that mass and the slaughter would have been awful.
I had long known that bombarding ducks off a feeding or resting bed pays no dividends, even if you ignore the question of fair play, for few if any of the ducks so frightened will ever return. So now, still concealed, I cupped my hands and gave several loud grunts. That started it. A cluck to the shivering Pat did the rest. Tearing through the willows, he all but captured one terror-stricken mallard drake. Then waves of ducks rose with recurring crashes, wings shattering the air with the sound of freight trains colliding.
At my whistled instructions, Pat ft scuttled back into hiding, and we watched the formations above us. Twisting flights of teal darted through clouds of mallards. Pintails, gadwalls, widgeon, scaup, spoonbills, and canvasbacks gyrated in confusion. The thing that amazed me most was the incredible number of black ducks. They weren’t so common in this area as other species and were highly prized. Now great clusters of these dark beauties winged above me.
While peace was settling over Goose Hole, Pat and I got ready. First I made a comfortable seat from several willowroot chunks. Then I waded out to scatter my dozen mallard decoys. I stuck two regular-length shells loaded with the new powder into the equally new Fox Magnum, blew on my duck call, and advertised for customers. Pat looked up at me with an expression that said, “Maybe we shoulda shot ’em when we had the chance.”
With the wind at my back, I settled down to wait and watch. Irma’s gun was thumping away regularly.
Suddenly, around the point of Miller’s Island, luffed a dozen or more black ducks. Straightening. they held for Goose Hole, circled its far rim just once, spotted the decoy stool, and heard my muted invitation. In another 10 seconds they were over my decoys, wings backed and delicate paddles dropped. Two shots with the heavy double folded two of those exquisite specimens, and they splashed chunklike among their betrayers. Pat had them back to me in a trice. “That’s more like it,” he seemed to grin. “Keep up the good work.”
In quick order, five different flights of black ducks resought sanctuary within Goose Hole. And each, thanks to the new loads and the big Fox, left a brace to Pat’s tender ministrations. Then began a wildfowl parade such as few gunners see in a lifetime. Amid all that plenty, I suddenly resolved to attempt a 25-duck bag limit in black ducks only. Many mallards were quietly shooed from the decoys. Pat watched in frowning bewilderment, whined despairingly. Scores of teal and scaup whisked by.
The next black ducks were high, at a longer range than I usually accepted. I missed with the first shot, killed with the second barrel. I now had 13 black ducks. An hour later, Pat fetched in my 25th. I had shot a box (25) of regular-length loads and 10 of the three-inch Magnums.
And the new loads had, in truth, brought down several ducks so high I wouldn’t have shot at them with the old-line ammunition. Though Pat had had to chase a few, I didn’t lose a cripple.
Ducks were still pouring into Goose Hole, but Irma had long since ceased shooting. She and Aaron were probably waiting at the entrance to Treadwell’s. I duck-strapped my limit of black ducks into four bunches, sacked the decoys, tied the ensemble to a length of seine twine, and waded across to Miler’s Island, floating the whole load behind me. I was a powerful beast of burden in those days, so the half-mile pack ahead didn’t concern me. I was pleased, however, to see Aaron walking up the island to meet me.
“Mist’ Nash,” he greeted, “I could almost tell by counting dem shots how many ducks you done kilt. Miss Irma was done through, so I picked up, pulled her down to d’ opening at Big Lake, and come on up heah to he’p you.”
Characteristically, Aaron was at the right and welcome spot. After splitting the load and reloading the Magnum, Aaron and I back-tracked along his trail.
As we hiked along the blade of Miller’s Island. which was about 75 yards wide, I suddenly heard a low gTun t from traveling geese. Nearly overhead, a bunch of honkers were floating just above the lacy cypress tops. They were returning from sandbar pickings on the Mississippi. I shrugged off my load and swung the big gun ahead of a leader. He wilted at the shot and started earthward. Leaning back precariously, I forced the gun’s tubes ahead of a flare-off goose and cut loose again. I shot off an intervening dead limb but saw the big fowl crumple.
The recoil shoved me flat on my back, where I sprawled laughing among the sunlit leaves. Getting up, I :Vas startled to see Aaron, minus his load of black ducks and decoys, staggering about drunkenly and holding his head. “What’s the matter, Aaron?” I asked.
“I was watching you’ first goose fall,” he said, “when that snag you cut off with yo’ second barrel hit me.” He rubbed his head and grinned. Then he crouched and pointed. “Load up quick. Mo’ geese comin’.”
This flight, tracking the others, was barely skimming the treetops, and again the new loads belted a pair to the island. Aaron and Pat were stringing geese like fish. Then two unreasonably high bunches passed overhead, talking to flocks on the refuge. Next came a family of seven at the original low level. I made a mess of the first shot, but downed with the second try. Within 10 minutes and with the goose parade continuing, I got the three more necessary for a federal bag limit of eight geese. Two highflyers landed alive. Without Pat, I’d never have put them on the string. One, a tremendous fowl, backed against a cypress bole and whacked the big Chesapeake a couple of pinion raps across the nose that set him back on his heels. When we resumed our retreat from Miller’s Island, skeins of honkers were still coming over.
Seeing us emerge from the timber and start to wade the slough with ducks, geese, and decoys floating behind us, Irma had broken out the alcohol stove and was ready with steaming tea and a bait of sandwiches and cookies. Guns were still booming from several blinds on Big Lake. It was 10 :45 a.m. by the watch.
Our load of game, plus Pat and the decoys, sank my boat several inches lower on the return trip. But it was a pleasure to pass the president’ s blind and find him several ducks short of his limit. By 1 o’clock we were en route to the office via that luxurious gravel road.
Nowadays young gunners seeking bags of two, four, and eight birds a day hurtle past Wapanoca on a fourlane highway. In 1890, when I shot my first mallard there, the countryside was a wilderness of virgin timber, with only a few “groundhog sawmills” whining away at the vitals of tomorrow. In addition to waterfowl there were bears, deer, panthers, turkeys, wolves. For years afterward the grounds cleared by timber fallers afforded the primest of quail shooting.
Now, most of this area is ditched, tile-drained, and irrigated-manicured for fields of cotton, soybeans, corn, and rice. Quail are scarce. Big Creek, off whose high, forested banks our boyish shouts rang while fighting big bass, is now a sordid draining ditch-dried up or freshet-flooded. What were once millions of acres of waterfowl wetlands are now shrunken almost to a point of no return.
But despite this beating up of lands for temporary profits, there is still a bit of game and fish left for posterity because of those sometimes-discouraged people known as conservationists. Though oftentimes beaten to their knees by selfish interests, they won’t and can’t be licked, for they have faith in the future.
The shots I fired while Pat and I crouched in the head-high willows rimming Goose Hole were heard round the sporting world. And the offspring of those test shells have since bellowed from many a Magnum like the one I used.
After writing my report on the test gun and ammunition, I lost no time in acquiring a 10-pound Fox Magnum of my own. The new shells were on the market a year later, and still are, with the label Super-X.
The last day of the 1954-55 duck season, I sat in a blind amid the ricelands of Arkansas with my old friend and hunting companion C. L. Pennington. We were shivering, and the cold revived memories of the warmth of Penny’s hospitable home in near-by Clarendon, Arkansas. I daydreamed back to the days when we sat at his table eating young hen turkey in milk, a delicacy that made you curl your toes and lift your eyes to the ceiling. Far to the northeast, Wapanoca’s expanses lay seared by drought and duckless. By luck and diligence, we had accumulated seven mallards. One more would fill our limits and give us leeway to the fire and hot coffee.
Then, down from the northwest with the wind on its tail, came a lone black duck, like a gale-pushed ace of spades on its way to somewhere. He passed too high even for those same threeinch shells in my Magnum.
“Chances are,” I buoyed Penny, “that bird’ll run out of seeing-water, wing around under the wind, and fight it back this way. He saw our decoys. I watched him crane his neck at ’em.”
Penny warmed his hands and fanny over the dying heat of the charcoal bucket and hoped the black duck wouldn’t be long about it. That very instant I sighted it again, and it was indeed coming back.
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“Too high still,” Penny murmured; but it wasn’t too high for my lethal Magnum load of powder and copper-coated 4’s. It wilted at my shot and seconds later showered the decoys with an icy splash.
“Penny,” I remarked, blowing a faint spiral of residue from the Magnum’s left tube and reaching for the weapon’s alligator-hide case, ”that magnificent black inkspot I just dropped out yonder is the same kind of duck that fell to my first Magnum shot 34 years ago. This one may be the last duck I’ll ever shoot.”
Penny, with his face all screwed up, swung around and looked at me. “It’s a darn good thing,” he chattered, “that Irma ain’t out here with us this morning. She’d fan you up one side and down the other for a crack like that. Swing that duck boat around. I better get you to the fire quick.”
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