Waterfowl and Turkeys
To a real hunter the wild duck does not represent anything particularly fascinating, but owing to the absence for the time being of other game (this was at the beginning of September; woodcock had not yet arrived, and I’d become fed up with running over the fields after partridges), I heeded my hunter [guide] and set out for Lgov.
IVAN TURGENEV
A SPORTSMAN’S SKETCHES (1852)
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The perils of duck hunting are great—especially for the duck.
WALTER CRONKITE
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Outsiders call us sadists or masochists; sometimes both. Others—mostly ourselves—describe our activities in romantic, even heroic, terms. We take ourselves very seriously and tend to forget that much of duck and goose hunting is fun and sometimes ridiculous.
GEORGE REIGER
THE WINGS OF DAWN (1980)
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Turkeys can be killed by chance, but when they are killed consistently, it is not due to chance.
JOHN MCDANIEL
A SUCCESSFUL FALL HUNT (2000)
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To watch mallards come in a flock, cut their wings and land but a few feet in front of you on a cold winter day near Stuttgart, Arkansas, is just about as close to heaven as I think one can get on this Earth. And as one who believes, because of my faith, that I’m going to Heaven, I’m pretty sure there will be duck hunting in Heaven, and I can’t wait.
MIKE HUCKABEE
NRA CONFERENCE (SEPTEMBER 2007)
I suppose it may seem like a strange sort of lullaby to some, but I have never heard sweeter music than the muffled report of duck guns on a distant marsh, and I know that others share my feeling.
BURTON SPILLER
MORE GROUSE FEATHERS (1938)
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While level flight is the rule, when necessary a duck can perform any imaginable aerial maneuver, including any found in a stunt flier’s bag of tricks. Furthermore, it will carry them out quicker, with more grace—and always come out of them a whole duck!
EDGAR M. QUEENY
PRAIRIE WINGS (1946)
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… if you have to be crazy to hunt ducks, I do not wish to
be sane.
ROBERT RUARK
“YOU GOT TO BE CRAZY TO BE A DUCK HUNTER”
IN THE OLD MAN AND THE BOY (1953)
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Such is the depth of this [turkey] mystique, and so thick is the veil before the truth, that before the creature can even be approached with a modicum of reason and logic, it becomes necessary to peel away the layers of legend—much as one peels the skin from around an onion.
TOM KELLY
TENTH LEGION (1973)
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Half a mile north of the pasture fence, his eye caught movement in the eastern sky. Slowly he lowered into a kneeling position, remembering what his dad had told him: “Sudden moves are always seen, but slow moves you might get away with.”
CHARLES L. CADIEUX
GOOSE HUNTING (1979)
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If you’re like me, there are times when you wish that you were born about a century ago, born wealthy, and were a waterfowl hunter back when the ducks darkened the sun.
STEVE SMITH
HUNTING DUCKS AND GEESE (1984)
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Any good shot will have his days when he is right and the birds come easy.
RAY P. HOLLAND
SHOTGUNNlNG IN THE LOWLANDS (1945)
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Dog-harried turkeys will make the angels weep.
TOM KELLY
TENTH LEGION (1973)
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In those of us who derive enjoyment from the flight of wildfowl and who know Arkansas’ Grand Prairie, a wistful nostalgia for its pin oak flats simmers and simmers throughout spring and summer months. It boils over when the first yellow leaf of autumn whispers that the Hunting Winds are on their way.
EDGAR M. QUEENY
PRAIRIE WINGS (1946)
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There are three reasons to take ducks home:
To eat.
To mount.
To be recognized by the Broom and Crockpot Club.
B. R. “BUCK” PETERSON
THE COMPLEAT WATERFO(U)WLER (1996)
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All of the turkey’s stealth and majesty go into making it the sport that it is. The kind that will have a man getting up three hours earlier than usual for four weeks running to go out into the woods when it is still dark and make a lot of strange noises, hoping to fool an unseen bird out there in the trees and gloom. Game that magnificent demands a level of commitment that borders on the obsessive and most turkey hunters are willing to make that commitment.
GEOFFREY NORMAN
THE ORVIS BOOK OF UPLAND BIRD SHOOTING (1985)
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The companionships that can form in a refuge parking lot are the kind made of something good, and solid, and right—a belief in the sporting ethic and a fondness for the birds we hunt.
STEVE SMITH
HUNTING DUCKS AND GEESE (1984)
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A wood duck place is, by definition, a special place. You go there alone, or with maybe one friend, and you don’t go there often.
GRAY’S SPORTING JOURNAL (OCTOBER 1990)
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Soul-wrenching is what distinguishes wildfowling from all other shooting sports.
GEORGE REIGER
THE WILDFOWLER’S QUEST (1989)
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I was standing in a swamp a while ago, looking at the teal go through the dead gum trees. There were more in that single flock than I’d ever seen at once before, and I shot one out of the front of it, took the gun down, raised it and shot a second from a third of the way through, and then put it down again, and if I say I was content to watch the rest fly past, I might actually mean I was too stunned by the size of the mob to try reloading for a third.
RON FORSYTH
REFLECTIONS, MAN AND BOY (1997)
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Essentially, there are ducks that are looking to set down, and those who couldn’t care less.
STEVE SMITH
HUNTING DUCKS AND GEESE (1984)
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The blood of the modern waterfowler courses with heritage, for we are ultimately the culmination of the people and events that have shaped the sport we know today.
CHRlS DORSEY
WILDFOWLER’S SEASON (1995)
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If you’re a goose hunter, a dozen football-sized lumps of blue clay with a piece of white paper stuck on each look like a dozen lumps of blue clay … but if you’re a blue or snow goose, those lumps … must look like blue or snow geese, and when you spot them from the air you may decide to pay them a visit.
ED ZERN
HUNTING AND FISHING FROM “A” to ZERN (1985)
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In a cynical and overcrowded world, the need for each of us to cultivate a spiritual oasis shared with a few likeminded friends is not readily perceived by the majority of people numb with the mediocrity of modern life.
GEORGE REIGER
THE WILDFOWLER’S QUEST (1989)
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The name turkey is sometimes said to have been given the bird because of confusion concerning the country of its origin. More probably it was suggested by the voice of the bird, as some of its calls sound like the syllables “turk-turk-turk—.”
AUSTIN L. RAND
AMERICAN WATER AND GAME BIRDS (1956)
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If you are one of those nervous, fidgety, head-rolling individuals who can’t even sit still in a barber’s chair, don’t worry about duck blinds. You take up railbird shooting seriously and let the other fellow have the ducks.
RAY P. HOLLAND
SHOTGUNNING IN THE LOWLANDS (1945)
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A turkey hunter operates in an austere, intellectual climate with a bare minimum of accessories—like one of those Japanese color prints of a single spray of blossoms. He grows accustomed to this stark simplicity, becomes fond of it …
TOM KELLY
BETTER ON A RISING TIDE (1995)
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I find myself looking forward to fall, when Keewaydin, keeper of the mystic northland, unleashes the Hunting Winds. Then the subjects themselves will return, spread their wings in benediction over their haven in the color spotted flats, and rest and dabble in the solace of its tranquil waters—amidst the vast silence of its very vocal trees.
EDGAR M. QUEENY
PRAIRIE WINGS (1946)
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Some of my fondest memories are tagging along in the woods with my father. At six I was deciphering turkey and deer sign. By eight I was a crack shot with my BB gun. I was 10 years old when I began toting a shotgun under Will Hanback’s intense supervision. We didn’t have many gobblers in Virginia back then, but that was okay. I was enjoying the woods with my father, and that is all that really mattered.
MICHAEL HANBACK
SPRING GOBBLER FEVER (1996)
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To hunt ducks you must leave your comfortable, predictable surroundings for that less familiar place where ducks work their magic … their spell is cast only where
they—not you—call home, and once there, you will refresh your soul and rediscover a simple passion.
B. R. “BUCK” PETERSON
THE COMPLEAT WATERFO(U)WLER (1996)
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I wonder whether I get closer to the core of things, somehow, with a dog and a duck call I don’t understand why either of these should take me any closer to anywhere, but that doesn’t mean they don’t take me there, I don’t understand why my dog retrieves with such zeal, but that’s no reason to stop using him.
RON FORSYTH
REFLECTIONS, MAN AND BOY (1997)
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There is only one way to become a good duck caller. Get someone who is really good to teach you, and then practice year after year with domesticated mallards and with wild ducks spring and fall. Stick to the mallard call at first.
RAY P. HOLLAND
SHOTGUNNING IN THE LOWLANDS (1945)
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Bird hunting is companionable as deer hunting is solitary.
GEOFFREY NORMAN
THE ORVIS BOOK OF UPLAND BIRD SHOOTING (1985)
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