Growing up on Lake Marion in the early 90’s was a great experience.
In a child’s eye’s, the duck hunting was world class.
Dad had become good friends with Mr Faitsie Bair and we hunted with him in his 14ft fiberglass boat, usually somewhere along the inside of the riverbank in the back of Stumphole woods. We seemingly always killed mallards.
I can take myself back to being 10 years old, standing in my den.
My father reminding me about my thermal underwear and double socks as he made ham and cheese sandwiches while the coffee brewed.
It’s funny how vividly I remember the green background of the clock on Mr Faitsie’s single cab gray Ford with the bench seat.
I always sat in the middle, and as I climbed into the cab, the heater rolled and some country song played low.
We made our way to the landing.
In those days Stumphole was full of local guys, and it was common to see boys I knew from school there.
I remember Duck Master’s first story of a pintail drake, and seeing my first banded bird there, a bluewing teal drake killed by a childhood friend’s father.
Mallards were the birds of my youth.
As far as I knew they were everywhere. They certainly were prevalent every time we went hunting, and in fact I remember wanting to see other species of ducks I had seen in Ducks Unlimited magazines. I recall my Saturday morning anticipations being “I hope we see a widgeon or a teal.”
But with each passing season our hunting changed. Where we always hunted the woods, sometime around middle school we moved out into the flats. It seemed every one I knew did that.
We still killed a couple mallards, but ringnecks, teal, gadwall, and others began to dominate our bags.
I didn’t understand at the time, but as I got older I realized that was the end of the mallards.
Many of men I knew as duck hunters weren’t seen at the landing as often, and before I knew it I was driving and my father was starting to give me the “y’all have fun.”
I furthered my Waterfowl education with local friends, and for several years strait my father and I always took a trip west.
I don’t remember it dawning on me that “the mallards were gone” I just remember them not being there.
Through the remainder of my teens, and most of my 20s, I focused on ringnecks and wood ducks, and anything else was a bonus.
I’m not sure what happened but some time in my late 20s, I became somewhat obsessed with finding and hunting the last few SC mallards.
If I found 2, I would hunt them for days.
I can’t explain it, but they almost became majestic to me.
Public water, wild mallards in SC were very rare and to me and killing them gave me the biggest thrill.
Once I found a relatively consistent area for them, I spent every cold front there, hoping to decoy a big northern greenhead.
It’s been 8 seasons since I’ve found this place, and while there’s never a lot, there’s always a few, and a few will do just fine for me.
When I first found this area they seemed far more prevalent, decreasing every season.
I never slaughter them, though at times, with the right weather, I’ve scouted more than 100. Most hunts result in 3-5 birds, with the occasional black duck or other puddler.
As the seasons pass, and fewer show up, I remember my childhood. How good I had it.
It dawns on me that maybe it wasn’t as good as I thought, it was just that I was surrounded by great hunters, capable of finding and producing the remaining few.
This past season, I hunted for them 3 times.
One hunt producing a single hen, another producing a pair, and then this one.
4 draws on public water wild mallards, and a drake Can. We couldn’t have been happier.
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