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Thread: The Few

  1. #1
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    Default The Few

    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.




    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
    Be proactive about improving public waterfowl habitat in South Carolina. It's not going to happen by itself, and our help is needed. We have the potential to winter thousands of waterfowl on public grounds if we fight for it.

  2. #2
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    Good read dude! And I hope and Pray it will get better.
    "I'm just a victim of a circumstance"

  3. #3
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    I missed my one and only draw this year. And the first shot was on the water!
    867-5309

  4. #4
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    I found a couple and hunted them and killed one this year. It's special for sure. I think you saw the picture.
    Quote Originally Posted by walt4dun View Post
    Monsters... Be damned if I'd ever be taken alive by the likes of faggot musslims.
    Quote Originally Posted by 2thDoc View Post
    I am an equal opportunity hater.

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by Relentlous View Post
    I missed my one and only draw this year. And the first shot was on the water!
    I remember you telling me.


    Don’t feel bad. I’m still not able to talk about the pair of black ducks I let get out. That’s for another day.
    Be proactive about improving public waterfowl habitat in South Carolina. It's not going to happen by itself, and our help is needed. We have the potential to winter thousands of waterfowl on public grounds if we fight for it.

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by willk View Post
    I found a couple and hunted them and killed one this year. It's special for sure. I think you saw the picture.

    I Remember congratulating you. Killing them here is worth the talk.
    Be proactive about improving public waterfowl habitat in South Carolina. It's not going to happen by itself, and our help is needed. We have the potential to winter thousands of waterfowl on public grounds if we fight for it.

  7. #7
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    I dont mean to be a buzzkill,but how can you tell they're wild anymore? some places dont even clip the toes anymore and i lost faith that if it doesnt have a band from up north then it's a old dock bird.
    Last edited by Coot_Commander; 02-26-2019 at 10:04 PM.

  8. #8
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    Because I hunt where the clip toes aren’t.

    And if you came up around both, you could tell a wild one from a tame at the glimpse of an eye.
    Be proactive about improving public waterfowl habitat in South Carolina. It's not going to happen by itself, and our help is needed. We have the potential to winter thousands of waterfowl on public grounds if we fight for it.

  9. #9
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    Reminds me of a pair of mallards that we saw drop into a hole a few 100yds away from us. My Partner pussied out, I ended up with a broken nose from a limb, but you bet those 2 ducks ended up on the strap the next morning...

  10. #10
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    I had two mallard draws this year. One was a drake and a hen. I killed the greenhead and let the hen fly.

    The second draw was a greenhead with his pintail drake sidekick. The greenhead decoyed and re-decoyed three or four times stopping to hover briefly over some 30 yard decoys but the mid-November sprig just wouldn't do it. I finally got the feeling it was the last pass and took a 45-yard shot at the pintail. I went home with a North Carolina bufflehead.
    Last edited by Rubberhead*; 02-27-2019 at 05:30 AM. Reason: Spelling
    Ephesians 2 : 8-9



    Charles Barkley: Nobody doesn't like meat.

  11. #11
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    I've never had the chance to see any wild ones in sc,but the ones I did shoot all had their back toes.i went fishing in a private pond near summerton the other day and the feller had 5 drakes and 3 hens with all their back toes and you could tell some had some farm duck in them.They didnt show up until after the season ended.
    Last edited by Coot_Commander; 02-26-2019 at 10:52 PM.

  12. #12
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    Pintails are such dicks here. In Canada or Mexico they are like skeeters.
    Nature...

  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by Coot_Commander View Post
    I've never had the chance to see any wild ones in sc,but the ones I did shoot all had their back toes.i went fishing in a private pond near summerton the other day and the feller had 5 drakes and 3 hens with all their back toes and you could tell some had some farm duck in them.They didnt show up until after the season ended.


    A tame duck never gets as high as a wild one....never even close.
    Be proactive about improving public waterfowl habitat in South Carolina. It's not going to happen by itself, and our help is needed. We have the potential to winter thousands of waterfowl on public grounds if we fight for it.

  14. #14
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    I sure wish I had the passion to be a great public land hunter.. I just simply dont, for other things yes (snook, redfish) but not for the duck. If it wasn't for a few hunts with friends and the joy of watching working my dog I would probably hang it up for good. Duck hunting is hard. I hope that passion returns when my son gets old enough to enjoy it. Those that put in the time deserve the success. Great story.
    "The best things in life make you sweaty"
    - Edgar Allen Poe

    “We need the tonic of wildness...At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us...”
    ― Henry David Thoreau

  15. #15
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    Great read Bog. Duck hunting is more than an obsession, to many of us, it's life.
    Listen to your elders. Not because they are always right but because they have more experiences of being wrong.

    "We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give" Sir Winston Churchill

  16. #16
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    Bog knows the deal

  17. #17
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    Great read

  18. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by cajunwannabe View Post
    Great read Bog. Duck hunting is more than an obsession, to many of us, it's life.
    Amen
    .
    80-20 Genaration

  19. #19
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    good read, Bog. Some get it. Some do not.
    "Check your premise." Dr. Hugh Akston

  20. #20
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    Great read Bog, Thanks for sharing!


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