How were you introduced to duck hunting?

[Bent Barrell]

MAN! It was in the early 70's at Valley Park, Ms. We hunted one of Mr. Howard Miller's duck holes on our cousins land. There were ducks everywhere! My Dad was in the Army and we always came home for Christmas and hunted deer, I was old enough to carry and shoot pretty much on my own so ducks it was. I remember chasing my first greenhead I ever dropped. It was about 25 degrees, 9:00am and I crippled it, I can remember my Dad telling me to "slow down, your gonna trip" and sure enough...under water log and I went head first. I shot out of the blind the rest of the morning in my longjohns next to the coal bucket, never stopped burning powder. I still have that ole greenhead mount! the wife can't stand it but it hangs in my sons room. That Christmas we musta taken over two hundred ducks, we hunted everyday for two weeks. Man I have had the Webfooted Flu since then and have the bills to prove it.

[jstanard]

Keep the stories coming! I've been enjoying this thread. Surely someone else has a story to tell? [img]images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

[comeback]

my first exposure to duck hunting happened when i was about 6. it was the winter of 63 and we had spent the night at my grandmother's. when i woke up that morning and went in to the kitchen to get near the cast iron heater, there were 4 mallards on the floor beside the heater. my dad had gone out hunting and had gotten back before i was out of bed good. that memory stuck in my mind. my first hunt was with my dad in the old plywood bottoms. i had hip-boots and a single shot sears .410. yes, the water went over the tops of my hippers but i wouldn't tell dad. he might want to leave. i gues that was my first real symptom of a future "problem". i think i was about 10 then. anyway, got my first duck that day. a drake wood duck. i was hopelessly hooked.

[Steven L. Presley]

Started duck hunting about 7 yrs. ago. My, how time flies. Our company hired a new guy, just so happens he was an extreme duck hunter. I had never even thought about duck hunting before that but he introduced it to me and even offered to take me hunting with him and his group, just so happens that Duckmen is in his group and was out there that morning. It was their "Honey Hole" and I really had no idea what to expect. Needless to say, we had a great hunt and seeing those ducks come in for the first time and the sheer agony of having to wait until that perfect moment to cut'em, hearing those birds go over us sounding like jets, that is all it took for me to know this was something I would do for the rest of my life. Finally got my dad to go with me last year and he's also hooked now! [img]images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] [img]images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] There's nothing like going hunting with your paw!

[MemphisStockBroker]

hopefully this can't be used against me in a court of law.... was sitting on a deer trail between two sloughs off the Pearl River outside of Jackson, 25+ years ago. greenheads pouring into this hole, making all kinda racket. smart-butt teenager got mad at these darn ducks making too much noise, running off 'my deer'. Thought it would be cute to scare them off with a shot from my .30-.30 One shot, the woods exploded with ducks, my buddy thought I had killed 'the big one' and came running. Much to my amazement, two greenheads floating in the water [img]images/smiles/icon_eek.gif[/img] from one shot.

We thought, heck with this 'sitting in a tree freezing our butts of and killing nothing but time' junk. We wanted to shoot something, like real hunters.
The next day, we had a large time shooting at these ducks. Had no idea what a duck call was... or decoys.... or waders. (our dad's did not hunt)

Remember riding back home in his tiny 1969 Toyota Corolla in just our underwear because our pants were wet, and frozen solid - with SEVERAL birds. (We didn't know about LIMITS back then either.) Got the car stuck... bottomed out - but we just got out, picked the back end of the car up, and kept going. Peice of junk car, but we had a jamin' radio! [img]images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

We have come a long way....
[img]images/smiles/icon_cool.gif[/img]

[Haymaker]

I went on my first duck hunting outing when I was in junior college. Some new friends of mine where nice enough to take me along with them on one of thier hunts. We were hunting a flooded corn field which is an important part of the following story. There were several of us hunting togeather, 5 or 6 guys, and there was one fella named Buck. Buck was wearing this new fancy hunting coat and waters. We were walking through about waste deep water and Buck was carrying about 2 dozen decoys on his back when he tripped over a corn stalk and went in face first!!! I was walking in behind him and when he fell in all I saw was this bid wave of water. To make matters more interesting, ole Buck had his coat stuffed down in his waders and with all the decoys on his back and the air trapped in is waders he couldn't get his feet up under him. All I could hear was Buck blowing bubbles. I reached up and grabbed him by the decoy bad and put him back on his feet. I thought that he would go back since he was soaking wet, but he hunted all morning. It could have been a bad situation if he had been by himself, but now it is one of our great memories. I don't even remember how many ducks we took that day, but I was hooked from then on.

Darrell