Written By: Hannah Riggs
For Mark Wilson, better known as Bigwater to other Ducksouth users, both duck hunting, and Ducksouth have been a big part of his life for many years now. Originally from Macon, MS, Wilson began tagging along on duck hunts with his dad when he was about nine years old.
Wilson’s father hunted ducks frequently at this time, but Wilson hadn’t yet discovered his passion for it. “I can remember my dad getting up at like four in the morning. I would wake up sometimes hearing him stir around the house. I would think ‘This guy is absolutely crazy to get up and go out.’ It was scary for me to think about getting up that early and going when it was so dark out,” Wilson said.
Wilson, however, finally decided to tag along with his father one morning to see what it was that made his Dad get up and out that early in the morning. “My first memory of duck hunting involves Shipley Donuts. The first thing we did on our way to the hole was stop at the old Shipley’s in Grenada on Highway 51. This big ‘ole lady brought out this big pan of fresh hot donuts. I’d never had the fresh hot ones. I’d always had the 10 o’clock version. After eating this hot, delicious, melt in your mouth donut, I remember telling my dad ‘I wanna go duck hunting again,’” Wilson said.
So Wilson did go hunting again. Or at least tagged along with his dad on the ride there.
“All I was doing when I would go, was sitting in my dad’s old school ‘70s Bronco. He had a bench seat in the back, and he would fix me a pallet. I would sleep on the pallet with a blanket and a bag full of donuts while they would duck hunt,” Wilson said.
Wilson finally did decide to tag along on a full hunt and was able to kill his first duck when he was 11 years old. “It was in a rice field in Holcomb. It was a hen mallard, and I shot it with an 1100 12 gauge. I know exactly what I did on the walk out to get it. It’s something I’ve done many times since. I tripped and went face first over into the water! It was the first of many “floating my hat” experiences,” Wilson said. That duck hunt Wilson found a love and passion that would continue until this day.
Duck hunting was very different in the ‘80s, and Wilson can still recall how things have changed. “I can remember being about ten years old and the old fashion coffin, fiberglass blinds. I can remember hooking it around my waist and following other hunters out into the rice field and just the hell we went through to get there. I still remember Mr. Harris, a hunting partner of ours, looking at me and saying ‘Is this what you want to do boy?’ By the time we got out there, everybody was in a sweat and felt like they were going to die.” Wilson said.
Besides the change in blind styles, Wilson has seen some differences in the ducks as well. “I got a picture of my dad and another fellow named Mr. Penn, with twenty pintails. Twenty pintails just the two of them! That was a legal hunt at the time. I’ve killed twenty pintails in maybe my whole life, let alone in just one hunt,” Wilson said.
Wilson’s love of duck hunting continued, finally being persuaded to join MSDucks about fourteen years ago. “I remember telling my partner, Don Miller, who was the one who told me about it. I don’t need to know what’s going on in Mississippi! I want to know what’s going on above us. I wanna know where the migration is in the flyaway’. I shied away until about 2002 when I finally decided to come on board,” Wilson said.
Since then, MSDucks and Ducksouth have become a big part of Wilson’s life. “Its been a tool in making great friendships. It kind of confused people like my girlfriend at the time that I was meeting complete strangers and hunting with them. But it was a natural brotherhood and fraternity that we just fell into because of everybody’s love of the sport,” Wilson said.
