The man has good points. He speaks a lot of truth. I am almost 60. I don’t drive 4WD trucks or use lift kits and big tires. I learned those lessons years ago. I don’t drive where I cannot drive, that is what a four wheeler or your legs are for. When you do use the four wheeler, you don’t act like an idiot with it rutting up all of creation. In so doing, I get better gas mileage, spend less tires and less on maintenance. You’re not as cool, but the stress level is lower.
The only call we had growing up was an Olt. It’s all we knew. Back then, they were $6.50 a piece and you knew someone who could modify them. Once they were modified, you didn’t show everyone else. I quit blowing them a few years ago and went to the classic well known J Frames. What I have been doing for the last few years is replacing the cork and/or reed frequently, sometimes every other hunt. This year I have changed fhe cork several times and kinked two reeds, yes I push the reed all the way back to the end of the cork slot. The old Olts and the DJ call——-he worked at Olt for 27 years——-will go for two years without changing anything and they never change tone when you do change the cork and reed out. I got one of the Cut Downs out this year and it still works. It has a read and cork that is about five years old too.
Here is what the Mud Motor has done. It has eliminated the informal rest area and the feathered edge. Before the advent of the mud motor, any given hunting area had two types of rest areas——-government areas and areas a boat could not get to. Those informal areas did two things: One, they held Ducks in a given locale long term. Two, they enhanced daily hunting. Many if not most, do not understand that Ducks are already up around flying looking for places to go in the woods. Now in the pre-dawn timeframe you have what sounds like a Huey UH-1 Helicopter careening through the woods molesting Ducks looking for a place to her away from it all. That is bad enough in itself but people using a Mud Motor as a fire plow is even worse. They are destroying those informal rest areas——-we call em’ thickets or new growth. They are mowing down new growth hardwood———you know the stuff the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission is concerned about. On top of all this, parking a consanct Mud Motor right on top of the areas where Ducks want to hunt is selfish, it messeses up hunting for all other hunters within a reasonable distance. Ducks see those boats. I was mentored to motor in to an area, get your butt out of the boat and ease it into the area you were hunting, set your decoys and then go hide the boat well away, well away from the hole. When I say hide, I mean hide it like your life depends on it.
If you have been at this a while then you know Ducks come into those feathered edges when the water is new to get the new invetebrates, get the newly available paltable acorns and what not. Slipping in with a paddle or waders doesn’t bother them within reason but fire plowing in with something sounds like a gangsaw mill in a pine lumber production faciity does.
The feathered edges and informal rest areas hold Ducks. Ducks come into the edges and then work their way out into the woods. Ducks find shelter in the rest areas and that brings other Ducks to an area. All of this is disappearing and the worst is yet to come. When you bring up mud motors, you are laughed out of the room ——- especially by the people making their living in the Duck Hunting industry. The AGFC is is a world of it’s on and DU and Delta are now boot lickers. EVERYONE knows something is off with Arkansas Duck Hunting but NONE of the so-called authorities and leaders will speak up. It’s all about that moment of fame or ringing that cash register. If the Game and Fish is so concerned with Duck hunting, why are they allowing people to grind up new growth hardwood with a Mud Motor?
I started hunting at age five with my Father in South Arkansas by 7, I was on a Deer Stand by myself. I didn’t get serious about Duck hunting until the age of 32. Did I go out and chase the shot? No. I humbled myself and carried other men’s decoys, filled up their tractors with a diesel hand pump, paid for their food, paid for their gas, bought each one of them an Olt Keyhole when they got scarce and expensive and theirs broke, etc. I took what they taught me and kept it between myself and my sons. Dad was a registered forester, he taught us from when we were old enough to walk and listen——-how to use a map, how to use a serious compass. I have never owned a GPS outside of the one on my phone and it is used for driving with my job, not hunting. I don’t use On-X eirher. I go knock on doors and respect the land owner and let him know I will be in an area, look him in the eye and let him size me up.
As far as semantics go, I have always thought a Duck call either ran good or ran bad. It ran rough or ran smooth so I referred to blow it as running it. But I may need to reconsider that terminolgy. I will do and get right back go you. 😉
There is a lot of wisdom in your comments. When I go, just seeing Ducks work is a blessing. For that matter, being able to get up, dress myself and walk through the woods is a blessing. I don’t tree top. I never have. I never will. I would rather see a lot of Ducks, watch the sunrise, pray, reflect on my life and kill one Duck than to tree top a limit. I still enjoy it. I still love Arkansas Public Timber. If the day comes when I don’t. I will stop.
and an old bois d’arc Echo J-frame.
