I parked the car and sat looking at the weathered building through the misty rain.  “So many memories,” I whispered aloud.

 

Earlier in the week, while discussing my last article about the “Cardinal Buck” with a reader and fellow hunter, I was asked if I duck hunted.  Her question took me down a “Memory Lane” of mornings spent in the timber and flooded fields with family and friends.

 

The question also inspired a detour on my drive home from church Sunday morning.  After attending the early service, I opted for a scenic drive home through the Noxubee Wildlife Refuge which is how I found myself parked outside the check-in station at the entrance to River Road.

 

My first “official” duck hunt had taken place here, followed by countless others over the years.  All those memories tend to make the small structure seem much larger in my mind.

 

I remember that first morning like it was yesterday.  Earlier in the year, I had received my notification in the mail that I had successfully drawn a hunt.  Opening that envelope felt like winning the lottery.

 

At the time, successful applicants were to show up at the check station at the appointed hour to show their permit and sign-in.  After all the hunters had signed in, a set of numbered ping-pong balls was dropped into a box, each number representing the order in which blinds were selected.

 

Walking into the check station on that frigid morning, I was dressed as if we were heading out on an arctic expedition.  Cloaked as I was in thermal underwear, a down jacket, and neoprene waders, the fire from the potbellied stove soon had me shedding layers as we awaited the draw.

 

I would love to have a picture of the expression on my face as I reached into the box and pulled out ball number one.  I was ecstatic!  Now, it was time for the hunt.

 

Quickly, or as quickly as you can move in that much clothing, all the hunters made their way to their trucks and the convoy of the camo clad headed down River Road to begin “the walk.”

 

Pop had done his best to prepare me for what was to come, but I had brushed it off thinking nothing this fun could be that hard.  I was wrong.  A one-mile walk in waders carrying guns, ammo, decoys, boat paddles, life jackets, and backpacks filled with thermoses of coffee, bags of sausage biscuits, and extras of everything isn’t easy.

 

Fortunately, my adrenaline carried me down the levee toward our assigned hole in “GTR No.1” (green timber reservoir).  When we arrived at our spot, we flipped the Jon boat, loaded all our gear, and paddled across the deep water near the levee and into the flooded timber.

 

When we reached the shallow water, Pop instructed me to get out and pull the boat.  Taking that first plunge is also something that I will never forget. Even with neoprene waders and layers of insulation, the water was frigid.

 

It was also deep. With only a few inches separating the top of my waders from the icy water, I gingerly felt my way toward our hole in the timber following the reflective markers with my headlamp while pulling the boat behind me.

 

As I neared the hole, the water became a little shallower.  However, I realized that I was still only one misstep away from my first backwater baptism in a stump hole and continued to proceed with caution.

 

We quickly set out the decoys and, after hanging our packs and guns in the trees along the edge of the duck hole, I stashed the boat away from our setup and tied it off.

 

I made my way back to the two small oaks that were to serve as my blind, checked my watch to see how long we had to wait for legal shooting hours, and stared at the last of the stars in the night sky.

 

I discovered that morning for the first time the beauty and magic of staring at the stars through a canopy of treetops in the flooded timber. Perhaps that is why, to this day, my favorite way to duck hunt is among the trees.

 

In the years that would follow, I would hunt flooded farm fields in pit blinds and layout blinds and while I loved both, they pale in comparison to watching cupped birds and hearing whistling wings sailing into the flooded timber.

 

Sitting there this past Sunday morning, staring at the old check station, I could almost feel the intense warmth from the old potbellied stove.  At once, I felt surrounded by the familiar faces that always seemed to gather for those morning hunts.

For those that didn’t have a permit, there was the option of going “standby” in the hopes that a permitted hunter wouldn’t show for some reason.  Each time that I went for a hunt, there would always be a mix of new faces, new permitted hunters, but the faces of the standbys were always familiar.

I was a young man at the time, always eager and in a hurry to go hunting, to take the drive down River Road and make the long walk down the levee.  Looking back now, I wish that I had taken more time on those check-station mornings to get to know the men and women behind the faces, to know their stories.

 

Perhaps, like me, they felt the magic of the timber and had come for the chance to get one more look at the stars through the canopy, to see wood ducks in flight at dawn, and to hear the whistling of wings.

 

Until next time, here’s to the magic and mystery of the natural world, and here’s to seeing you out there in our great outdoors.