Christmas came early with two recent hunts.
One was a waterfowl hunt, and one was a deer hunt. They took place within a few hundred yards of each other.
The waterfowl hunt was an annual outing at Hampton Reservoir with Mike Freeze of Keo and Sheffield Nelson of Little Rock, both former members of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. As always, Jimmy Green and Matthew Green, both of Stuttgart, led the proceedings.
I leave my duck calls at home on these occasions. Jimmy and Matthew Green are sensational callers, so I listen and learn.
The hunts occurred before last week's rains, so Hampton Reservoir was one of the few places that had water, and ducks packed in like sardines. They rose in waves and blackened the pale blue eye of dawn as we motored to our holes.
Ducks landed all around and then flew away again as we arranged our gear. Ordinarily that makes me anxious. On the Arkansas River it's common for ducks to sit in your lap and then leave minutes before legal shooting time. They can get pretty scarce afterwards.
That's never a problem here. There will always be more.
I had to remind myself of that fact when Jimmy Green announced that it was shooting time. About 20 mallards sailed in head high and plopped down 15-50 feet away. I could have gotten at least three in one volley.
"Don't be greedy," I said inwardly. "There's plenty of time."
I picked out one greenhead from the group and yelled, "Boo!" The birds launched skyward, and I folded the drake.
I got three more greenheads over the next 90 minutes and then completed my limit with a northern shoveler and a gadwall drake.
Tens of thousands of geese made a terrible racket as they mustered out for breakfast, and I brought a few Winchester Blindside 3-inch shells loaded with BB shot in case the opportunity arose.
It came when a wedge of nine white-fronted geese passed low. I fired on the lead goose and then led the one beside it. They folded and hit the water in front of me like bombs.
On Monday, I returned for a deer hunt. My stand was on a levee with the reservoir in front and behind. Matthew Green said that deer travel through the water, and that I could shoot as far as 200 yards and as close as 20 yards.
I had no sooner sat down when a big-bodied deer strolled across an opening in the water. In Zone 16, a legal buck must have an inside spread of at least 15 inches or one main beam of at least 18 inches. This one didn't look that big, but, it was gone so fast that I couldn't tell.
That happened at about 1:45 p.m.. For the rest of the afternoon deer drifted like ghosts across the far end of the water lane where it met dry land. At least one was a buck, but again, they moved so fast I couldn't determine legality, let alone make an ethical, sure-killing shot.
Meanwhile, ducks funneled into the woods in groups large and small. They don't mess around when they "work" real ducks. There's none of their usual flying around and around in circles while examining a hole. They see real ducks on the water, and they drop in without hesitation.
It was the perfect opportunity to study how real ducks call to each other. One thing I noticed is that ducks in the air mostly made the feed call. Hens on the water made mostly comeback calls. It's a sequence that starts with a hard, emphatic lead note followed by a set of notes in descending pitch. Ducks have distinctive voices. Some sound "textbook." Some sound worse than I do.
Ducks didn't necessarily go to the calling hens. They lit where they wanted and then assembled by swimming.
At sunset, all of the thousands of ducks that lit in front of rose in waves and flew behind me. The mallards went first, followed by wood ducks and shovelers. Teal and geese were the last to arrive.
There were so many that the din of their splashing, cackling and fluttering sounded like the low, dull throb of a distant freight train.
"People pay a lot of money to see this," I thought as I took it all in.
A gift like that must be shared, so here it is.
Merry Christmas!
Sports on 12/24/2017