Originally Posted by
Professor
When we had ducks in SC and before all the impoundments were planted and managed, the Mallards would leave the Refuge at Jacks Creek everyday at daylight and arrive in the Swamp about a half hour later. We usually had about 100-200 thousand big ducks on the refuge at any given time and most of those would show up at Otter Flats, Pine Island, Mill Creek, Snake Creek, Tavern Creek, etc. The timber hunting rivaled anything I've ever seen in Arkansas. In fact, before the 1990's there was not the mass exodus from Sumter, Richland, Orangeburg, and Clarendon Counties to Arkansas every year. Before the Black Duck limit was dropped from 5 to 1, it was relatively easy to kill a 5 Black limit. Of course all of this depended on the water levels, but I rarely remember Sparkleberry being dry. We had to go through a field, open and close a gate and put in at the "old" landing.
Professor
PS: In the 50's and 60's Pocalla Swamp in Sumter and Clarendon Counties was just as good (or better) than Sparkleberry!
For 15-20 years starting in the mid 50's, my grandfather and two partners had a hole in the Pocalla swamp with three one man blinds. Those three men shot their "pot hole limit" every morning before work. If I remember the stories correctly, the limit was either two or three ducks at the time, but they set their limit one bird each above that. Never more and never less. They shot every day except Sunday, but one of the three didn't go to church, so he would take two friends on Sundays.
My grandfather kept very detailed records and I have all of those. It came out that they killed 2 mallards to every black and 15% of the birds were banded. I have a cigar box full of his bands.
They also hosted Mickey Mantle and Ted Williams over the years, who hunted as guests of Bobby Richardson with them.
When they decided to stop their run, and I can't recall why that was, the guy who would shoot on Sundays took a couple guys in there and they shot over 100 on back to back days.
In the notes about the hunts there are lots of descriptions of walking out of the swamp to the car and looking back over the swamp at the swarms of mallards. Pretty cool stuff.
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