Young guns

Duck hunt brings out youthful exuberance

A buckbrush reservoir near Stuttgart provided a stellar duck hunt Thursday for (from left) Ely Caroom, Jack Ferguson, Fischer Hutchison and Preston Clark.
A buckbrush reservoir near Stuttgart provided a stellar duck hunt Thursday for (from left) Ely Caroom, Jack Ferguson, Fischer Hutchison and Preston Clark.

— One suicidal spoonbill reminded me of the opening scene in the film Dances With Wolves.

Facing the loss of his leg in a barbaric Civil War field hospital, Lt. John Dunbar, played by Kevin Costner, instead courted a hero’s death by stealing a horse and riding through a hail of Confederate gunfire. An entire skirmish line of Rebs couldn’t hit him, and his feat inspired a victorious Union rally.

The crazy spoonbill flew the gauntlet near the end of a spectacular duck hunt Thursday in Arkansas County near Stuttgart. It didn’t inspire a rally, as ducks prefer to avoid conflict with people, but it escaped unscathed against seemingly insurmountable odds.

Anchoring this skirmish line were Ely Caroom, 12, of Little Rock; Fischer Hutchison, 17, of Little Rock; Jack Ferguson, 13, of Little Rock; and Preston Clark, 18, of Furlough. The group also contained Scotty Caroom of Little Rock and former Arkansas Game and Fish Commission members Mike Freeze and Sheffield Nelson.

Giant knots of mallards boiled skyward out of the buckbrush before dawn as we motored to our hunting hole. We formed a line from three small brush islands that stretched across a short, wide opening. Hutchison and Clark were at the far end. Nelson and the Scotty Caroom were in the middle with Ely Caroom and Ferguson. Freeze and I were at the other end on opposite sides of a brush thicket.

At shooting time, wave after wave of mallards flew over, filling the air with cackles and the nasal hums of the drakes. Mallard hens on the water greeted them with raucous hail calls, but the birds in the air wheeled to the sound of Jimmy Green’s call.

With young hunters, it’s all about shooting the guns, so these dawn squadrons escaped without harm. After each volley, Nelson could be heard offering gentle admonitions.

“Now guys, I think those needed to be a little lower.”

Then the next group came over and received the same treatment.

Finally, ducks swooped low from other directions as the wind shifted, and the hunt started in earnest. I shot one incoming hooded merganser that sailed over my head and hit Freeze squarely in the back. I heard a solid thud, accompanied by a deep grunt.

With the sky already full of ducks, massive flocks of geese rose from nearby fields and headed our way, as well.

“Get ready,” Nelson said.“Sometimes a few of these geese will make a mistake and fly a little too low and you can get them.”

A vast mix of snow geese, blue geese and specklebelly geese came over in virtual clouds. Sure enough, a pair of specks came over noticeably lower than the others. Hutchison brought one down with two well-placed shots from his Winchester Super X3. It was a young goose with dark, full bands across its breast, perfect for mounting.

I listen closely to ducks when I hunt, and I could scarcely tell the difference between Hutchison’s calling and the real thing. His tone was excellent, as were his pitch and volume. His cadence and phrasing were excellent, too, and the ducks seemed to like what he had to say.

Later in the morning, the mallards had vanished, as had the big flocks of teal that buzzed us early. However, spoonbills - or northern shovelers - arrived en masse, and we obliged them. After their initial burst of exuberance, the boys settled down and did some fine shooting.

It was during this flurry that I shot a spoonbill drake that also whacked Freeze in the back. That was a bigger duck, so it hit harder.

“Dang it!” Freeze yelled.

It brought to mind another hunt several years ago in the same spot when Freeze shot a mallard that hit former AGFC Commissioner Brett Morgan in the face and bloodied his lip.

Things had quieted down when the Kevin Costner bird showed up. It came high, set its wings and dove toward the hole. Everybody except Freeze and I opened up on that bird. It flared, rocketed upward, made a tight circle and fluttered toward the hole again. The skirmish line emptied their guns at it and, amazingly, the spoonie blew out of the hole unharmed. The metallic sound of actions slamming closed echoed across the water, followed by the metallic scrapes of ammo being pushed into magazines.

“Watch out! Here he comes again!” Scotty Caroom announced.

The crazy duck made two more low passes at the hole as the skirmishers emptied a second volley. Again the duck escaped unharmed, and this time it didn’t come back.

By 8 a.m., birds were far fewer and the last hunter finally announced that he’d shot all of his ammo. Despite their 5 a.m. wake up, the boys were stoked with excitement all the way through breakfast. I suspect it would have been a different story if they were at school.

Duck hunting tends to have that effect.

Sports, Pages 25 on 12/09/2012

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