When Did Duck Hunting "Hook" You?

[LethalBirdBuster]

I was 8 years old i had been duck hunting a few times and really never understood it. We I was 8 and youth waterfowl hunt i had been practicing my calling a little bit with my echo double reed poly brown call for a couple weeks knowing i was going on this trip. Well the morning we got there it was pouring rain and about 40 degrees out we walked a good 1/2 mile to this blind called the Hilton in brownsboro, Alabama.the decoys set and there was about 10 kids hunting with dads and 3 guides. I asked the owner who invited us named Mr. Nikki if i could do a hail call on opening light. Well time was hear and i didn't know if i sounded good or crappy but i did a hail call to the best of my knowledge. Well all i could remember was there was water coming through the blind about knee deep and it was sleeting rain spitting snow and ice was on my waders. So after my hail call there was ducks every were and by 8:30 and a lot of shooting and missing we had limited out with 60 ducks.

best hunt of my life and what started a fire in me that has yet to dim.

[greenheadgrimreaper]

It's some good stories here. What is intriguing is that the majority did not have "jam up" first hunts. I reckon some folks take a liking to it while others don't.

Now I majun if the subject of virginity came up well then...everybody here is a rockstar.

[aweyerman]

Now I majun if the subject of virginity came up well then...everybody here is a rockstar.

Please elaborate a little on this one...

[Trip]

The things that stick out the most about when I started hunting are being with my Dad and all the talks we had in the boat and the coal bucket that stayed lit on the middle bench of his old 1436. I remember the smell of the burlap sacks he used as camo and the extra ones he would bring and lay in the floor so I would have somewhere warm to play or nap. He never had an outboard bigger than a 9.9 and don't ever recall a motor running right. Seems like we was always paddling. One of the funniest things that seemed to always happen was getting his truck stuck. Dad never would buy a 4x4 and he wasn't in to walking so he tried to get us as close as he could with what he was driving. I can't tell you the number of times we had to walk to the laundry mat in Coldwater to call Mom to come get us. With all that being said, I can't recall never wanting to duck hunt. It's just what we did when the winter rolled around and now it seems to occupy my time in some way or another throughout the whole year. With a son due to be born any day now, I hope he looks forward to duck hunting with me like I do my Dad.

[Trip]

Now I majun if the subject of virginity came up well then...everybody here is a rockstar.

Not me, mine was a fat girl that I never spoke to again. My friends still remind me of that every now and then. She's the kind of girl that gives you the full body shivers when you think about it.

[GET-N-RITE]

Been hooked since the first time I went and didn't get to kill anything because I was 6. I picked up geese and ducks for 2 years until my dad thought i was old enough to handle a gun in the pit. I remember an ole chalk eye coming and a lighting on the left end of the pit. Ole man said turkey shoot and i raised that ole 4-10 up and let him have it. I am still just as excited for every duck season as I was the 1st time I went.

[duramax]

My dad started taking me when I was 2, and I shot my first duck when I was 6, so I can't really say when I was "hooked", it's just always been a part of me.

[tobydawg]

My first trip hooked me - around 1990 or so in a slough in the Tombigbee bottom with my grandpa....I was about 10 and he had just given me a little 20 ga. Ithaca 37 and he was totin his old familiar A-5 Mag that was rubbed silver with wear and had a polychoke on the end....I just had on a lil pair of knee boots and inevitably managed to find a hole that was deep enough to fill em up on the way in. Strangely enough I can't remember the first thing about being cold or wet that morning. Not long after daylight a pair of mallards came in and I shot the drake and he shot the hen. I remember gettin that bird in my hands and thinkin that was the prettiest thing I'd ever seen. My big regret is that I didn't take Pop up on the offer to mount that bird - I ate em instead.

[blgros1]

I started out hunting fairly young at about 5. Dad started me out on woodduck roosts in the swamp. He would literally put me on his shoulders and walk me in(or put me in the front of the round bottom pirogue and tell me not to check any weight) until we got to the roost then he would find a high spot in the swamp and put me out. I remember wearing those knee high black boots with the red rib around the top. I had a crack barrel 410 that had a swail in the barrel. Guns an shells, never used a decoy one until our morning hunts for French Ducks. First real duck club was down in Venice, La off of Camp canal USA. Talk about a duck haven. I think i was 11 when we started hunting that area. Been doing it ever since and i still to this day haven't found an outside sport that i enjoy more.

[arduckslayer]

I don't remember not going duck hunting.

Same here. I made my 1st hunting trip with Dad to Eagle Lake, Texas, when I was 9 months old (unless you count the Alaska hunting trip my mom went with my dad on when she was 5 months pregnant with me). I made my 1st hunt in a goose spread in Texas when I was 4. I'm very blessed to have been able to hunt with my dad and brother for as long as I have in as many different places as we have. It was a big deal for my dad to take me and Stephen somewhere different every year when we were out out school for Christmas break.

[novacaine]

It started off during my breast feeding days back in the early 60's. You see, my dear ol mom had a tat of a duck on her left tit and every since then i have been a left handed duck hunter that loves titties.
No, the real story is every since i walked up my first mallet at age 11. I put the 28 ga. death stroke on ol greenie. It was GLORIOUS.

[CBRADGO]

Now I majun if the subject of virginity came up well then...everybody here is a rockstar.

What, someone been telling you stories about me again huh? I thought everyone lost their V card to a blonde, two brunettes, and an asian chick...

[The Waterfowler]

1961 when two friends set me out in the pre-dawn darkness in Mullin's Cove on the Tennessee River with a half dozen paper mache decoys. Nearly froze to death that December day, but all was forgotten when I killed the only duck that came near me. Just about rubbed all the feathers off his Greenhead as I sat and marveled about the beauty of something so new to me.Next day I killed a lone drake Bufflehead that I still have mounted in my collection. 50 years ago seems like yesterday.

[CBRADGO]

What hooked me wasn't a jam up hunt, it was my Dad telling me stories of how it used to be. Slogging through gumbo for a mile, rain & cold, trash bags for waders, his buddy falling in a slough and having to cut his waders off of him because they had frozen to him. It was the romance of it all that sparked the fire. The fire blazed when I stood in a roost hole at last light on the east side of MS, 2 miles from the AL border, just about as far from the Delta as you can get. Ducks by the hundreds, maybe even thousands, came and roosted that night. Mallards, pintails, teal, woodrows, gadwall, just about every duck in the spectrum roosted there that night. I swear, the quacks, whistles, squeaks, and smell haunted my dream for a solid month, everytime I closed my eyes I saw them pile in that little 2 acre puddle like it was the only place a duck had to sleep for the night. Not just a duck tornado, it was a duck swarm...

[brake man]

I got the hunting and fishing gene from both sides of my family and really can't remember not at least having a cane pole in my hand. However, I can remember just about every detail (except if I was 8 or 9 at the time ) of my first duck hunt with my Dad and older brother at "the brake" (what we have always called Beaver Dam). Dad told stories all our lives about the skies being blackened with ducks at the brake for many, many years, especially in the 1950's so I could not wait to get my first shot at a duck. The early morning was cold and there was a thin coating of ice on the water. We waded (stumbled, to be more accurate) into the edge of the cypress trees and buck brush as shooting time approached. My Dad must have known that I was going to get wet that morning as he had a hunting coat full of dry socks. No kidding, I fell into the icy water seven times and each time Dad would pick me up, put me on a log, drain the water from my boots, replace my wet socks with dry ones, and then put my boots back on. We kept on moving to our spot and ended up getting a few shots that morning. I couldn't hit a thing with my single-shot .410, but I remember thinking duck hunting was awesome. I don't get to hunt as much as I used to and would like to, but I still immensely enjoy hunting with Dad, my two boys (6 and 10), my brother, and other family members and friends. My boys have the bug and love to go, as well!