Summer has a way of getting us (hunters) a little down, with its heat and humidity it has us longing for cooler days and the changing of the leaves, it has us yearning for Septembers first morning of dove season for with that starts the ever consuming pursuit of game in all its splendor, for soon after comes the opening days of deer,duck and quail. So in those summer evenings I find myself pondering on days gone by and the memories stored in the forests and fields and remember grand days with old faithful dogs and friends.

December 2017 my good friend Jordan Muir had invited my father,brother and myself on a combination deer, duck and quail hunt (mainly) duck on the Black River in eastern North Carolina. The Black River is a tributary that starts in Sampson county with the merging of the Great Coharie Creek and the Six Runs Creek and snakes its way into the Cape Fear River and is know for its old growth forests and grand bald cypress forest some 2’600 years old, a marvelous place teaming with diverse wildlife deer,bobcat,river otter,black Bear and of course duck make this there place of residents. My father having a passion for deer hunting having started at the age of 8 and killing his first deer and 13 with a bow that’s some 50 odd years of pursuing that elusive species of Artiodactyla….yeah I had to look that word up! So we didn’t go duck hunting when I was growing up, my father went a handful of times in his youth but didn’t have a passion for it like he did deer hunting. So I for one was looking forward to a new experience!

Arriving at Jordan’s cousins place on the Black River we promptly unloaded our gear and guns and awaited his cousins arrival a Mr. Allan Page owner and operator of Leaning Tree Game Calls a very skilled call maker and duck hunter to boot! We hit it off marvelously! Having a love of wildlife,good food and vintage firearms we stayed up most the night in conversation. Finely realizing how late it was and how early we need to get up we hit the sack. The next morning we fixed a grand Southern breakfast and set off on Allan’s property to do a little quail hunt! Quail used to be abundant in NC but with the progress of time and the loss of more and more farmland and do to the chemicals used in the practice wild quail in NC are sadly dwindling so in order to do a hunt quail were provided by Jordan’s employer at the time Shady Knolls Game Preserve, still we has a wonderful time tromping through the pine forest in pursuit of the little gentleman! After said hunt was completed we commenced to clean and prepare the little gentlemen for the nights supper and what a supper it was! Fried quail,venison and Allan’s signature way of fixing whole duck in the oven! Good conversation on the days hunt over a glass of port ended the day in cozy bliss.

The next morning while in the process of washing the sleep out of my eyes and preparing a little breakfast the door burst open and a blast from a duck call broke the mornings silence! Good morning fellas! Allan greeted us in his usual jovial manner.So loading up we drove through the darkness down back roads until we reached our designated spot, trudging through the undergrowth we finally reached the river and Allan having dragged a little kayak with him jumped in it and commenced breaking the ice that had formed on the water over the cold and chilly night, then throwing out the decoys we set up on the dam Jordan my brother Seth and myself, we were at the far right hand of the group, we waited with baited breath in the cold and frosty morning for those tell tail whistling wings. Before legal shooting hours (7am) in NC we could hear the skidding wooosh of the ducks starting to land. A shot from Allan’s daughter Skye’s 20 gauge broke the mornings silence! At that the ducks that had landed erupted in a haze of confusion! Ducks were everywhere darting about, I heard my brother Seth let loose with his Browning A5 3 inch mag as a mallard flew by overhead I cut loose as well with my 1901 Winchester 10 gauge but do to excitement and inexperience …mainly excitement both shots were out of range. We had a few more mallards fly by overhead that morning all out of range but the experience sparked a new found love of waterfowl hunting! Seeing those magnificent little dive bombers cup up and come into decoy is an experience one shouldn’t let pass by in a lifetime.

After returning to camp around 10 we decided to go on a jump shoot down the river in kayaks, let me tell you if you haven’t done that you are missing out! It is one of the most fun things I have done! Allan drove us up river to a bridge put in and dropped us off and said it should take us around 5 hours to drift down to where he would be waiting to pick us up, with that we unloaded the kayaks one single man for Jordan and a double man for Seth and I. We eased the boats into the lazily flowing Black River as Allan pulled away giving a a honk and thumbs up, We decided Seth would steer and let me do the shooting the first half and then we would switch and then he would shoot the later part of the trip, the river was eerily gorgeous with its ancient old growth cypress trees standing proudly over us ever watchful over the centuries.

We hadn’t drifted 100 yards when a group of 10-12 wood ducks exploded from our left off the bank! Guns were thrown to shoulder and cordite was ignited but with the sudden explosion of feathery confusion and excitement shots did not hit there targets, we were left in awe of how swift and fast the little feathery fowl could get out of dodge! As we came to our first bend in the river Jordan said keep an eye out to the extreme left or right depending on which way the river runs, the bend was to the left so I was in the process of checking my shotgun when all the sudden a hen wood duck exploded from my right under some overhanging brush on the bank. The 1901 Winchester snapped to my shoulder and I let loose a load of RST #4 in her direction and she came tumbling down my first duck! Drifting up and plucking her out if the swirling Black River I marveled at how the sun shown a gold’ish green sheen on her grey body absolutely gorgeous!

We continued down the lazily twisting river having to maneuver over fallen trees and brush jumping mainly wood duck, the thing about wood ducks is that if you jump them up they will fly down river only 3-4 hundred yards and land again so opportunity to get another shot is high. So half way through the trip I switch out with Seth and through out the rest of the trip we kept jumping this drake wood duck we would get almost within range and he would bust out not giving us a shot, we were coming to the last stretch of river in our trip when to our left he busted out from the left bank! Seth swung his Browning up to meet the little rocket and with a jolting roar the drake came crashing down Seth’s first duck! We found him floating feet up down the river stuck in some brush. And what a drake wood duck! Marvelously mature and one of the biggest ones Jordan said he has ever seen! Our trip at and end we drifted into where Allan said he would be waiting, pictures where taken and congratulations were made and a new found passion was sparked in these old deer hunters for these gorgeous feathery fowl!