My first time in the woods of Arkansas

[BEVOHD]

I remember it like it was yesterday. I had never hunted waterfowl in the woods of Arkansas. I grew up in the rice fields of Texas hunting geese and ducks near Eagle Lake in Katy. I came to Arkansas for college in Searcy and had heard about the Arkansas duck hunts that you could have. I was anxious to see what all the fuss about. This "timber hunting" that everybody kept talking about, it was like they lived for it, ate it and drank it up. I didn't understand. I kept thinking, how in the world are you going to kill ducks in the woods? It didn't make sense. It was foreign to me. I was done listening and hearing about it, I wanted to find out for myself, so I did!

The morning came, it was time to experience what everyone said would be the best duck hunt I would ever have. We were going to be on public land; some place called Hurricane! So I meet my buddy around 2am. He had talked about a boat ride that we would have to take and that we would need to be ready to "take off" at 4am sharp. I thought, "Ok, a boat ride that will be cool". Not only had I never hunted in the timber, but I had never hunted out of a boat either. We got to Hurricane and loaded the boat with all our gear, and let me tell you, we had gear for everything. Apparently in Arkansas, it's a pretty big deal to make breakfast while you're hunting. So we had all our breakfast items, extra cloths, toilet paper (yes, even toilet paper) and just about every other gadget that you could think of. This was a big switch from hunting the rice fields of Texas. We didn't take a lot of extra gear. Mostly because we didn't hunt out of a boat and we weren’t surround by 4-5 ft of water. But I just thought "this is the Arkansas way", I'll get used to it.

We got into the boat and apparently we were not the only ones that were out there to hunt. There must have been 50 other boats on the water. I thought it was an awful lot of boats and not much room to maneuver. We had boats in front of us and pretty soon behind us. Then, all of the sudden, someone yelled from up at the front of the line, its 4am lets go! You would have thought that someone found the gold at the end of the rainbow. These boats took off like it was the last time they would ever take off in their boat again. We were flying past boats and bumping boats and trying to get past this boat or that boat and then to top it all off, we had to dodge the trees as well. You talk about being scared for your life, this was it! I thought we were going to die! All this just to go duck hunt! But once we got into the creek, things slimed out and I felt a little safer. Boats were dipping off to the left and right and I thought to myself I'm glad were in the creek and not racing through the woods with a tree around every corner waiting to jump out and touch someone! But, I spoke to soon. We dipped off into the woods and started down what seemed to be a path, but really I couldn't tell. It was just too dark and we were going so fast with nothing more than a Q-beam for light. Then everything just opened up and I felt like we were on the ocean. Not a tree in sight. I felt relief for the first time in almost 20 minutes of a bold and daring boat ride through the torturous woods of Hurricane! But we weren’t done. We darted off into the woods again and went through a spot so tight I thought we were going to get stuck. Thankfully we didn't. I don't think I could have taken anymore stress for that day. I had already gotten enough for a life time it seemed.

We finally came to a clearing in the middle of most definitely nowhere! I remember thinking we better kill some ducks after all that (meaning almost getting killed on the boat ride) while we were throwing out decoys and setting everything up. When we were done we got all of our breakfast gear out and started to make some food and I was ready for that, I felt like I could eat a cow after all that I had been through that morning. We finished eating and got everything cleaned up and put up. It was getting lighter and I knew time was getting close. My buddy said to stand up. "The woody action is fast and furious and it's easier to shoot standing up" he told me. He was right, the action was fast and furious and we limited on the woody's in about 10 minutes or so. But the real prize was waiting for the mallards to fly. When they started flying, it was like nothing I had ever seen before. It was crazy awesome and we limited in about an hour or so. I couldn't wait until the next week when we could go do it again.

This was my first experience of hunting in the woods of Arkansas and that was 13 years ago. I go back into the Hurricane woods every year that I am able. The boat ride no longer scares me and I look forward to it every year that it floods. Some duck hunts are good and some are not. But I go back every year so I can hear the ducks flying over top and cracking tree limbs as they glide through them to the earth from up above. It's a feeling that never gets old! Well, until next time, happy hunting in the woods of Arkansas.