Snow Day on the Delta

Admittedly, when I returned from Christmas break, I was a bit disillusioned. I was back on the Delta, away from family and friends, and the realities of the day to day requirements were setting back in. We came back to school on a Monday (which is brutal by the way), and went through a full week of class. Toward the end of the week, I began hearing rumors of potential wintry weather that could come our way, and my spirit started hoping and praying for a snow day. The rumor has always been that schools here could be cancelled even with a threat, so I knew the 100% precipitation that was predicted for Sunday night had a great deal of potential. Sure enough, wintry weather arrived. It started as snow, then we had some sleet, then more snow, providing a light white blanket over the Mississippi Delta. As I looked out the window into the arctic tundra that was forming outside, my mind began reeling with how I could accomplish what I really wanted to do with my day off: go duck hunting.

I've grown up hunting and got into duck hunting when I went to college. Because the Delta is so close to the Mississippi flyway, duck hunting here has been acclaimed as one of the better places to hunt duck in the United States, if not world. I moved down here with all of this in mind, and hoped that I could make the connections necessary to do some legitimate Delta duck hunting while here. Fortunately I have developed a fantastic community of people through my church, and within this group there happens to be some salty waterfowlers.

I called up a friend whom we'll call Farmer John. Farmer John is, you guessed it, a farmer, and consequently has a copious amount of land that floods in the winter months. These fields which once held rice or corn are now magnets for various species of waterfowl and are prime locations for duck hunting. After speaking with Farmer John for a few minutes, we had reached an agreement, and I made plans to arrive at his house at 5:30 the next morning.

I could hardly sleep that night; I think I literally got 3 hours. Between nervous excitement and random energy, I had to do push ups and read Old Testament literature to eventually find slumber. Sure enough, though, my alarm fired off at 3:50 a.m. and I was on the road to Farmer John's by 4:30 a.m.

Because of the nature of the roads, I tried to leave ample time to make the 30 mile drive to Farmer John's. I crept my front-wheel drive Honda Accord up the highway, knowing that a bad move could literally result in my being stuck in a ditch for who knows how long. Motivated by a healthy amount of fear and a giddy excitement that rivals this kid, I completed my passage and pulled into a remote driveway in the middle of nowhere.

After we loaded the 4-wheeler, bags, decoys and guns, we set off to one of his fields on the snow-covered gravel roads. After a short ride, we unloaded the 4-wheeler, and continued on to one of Farmer John's duck blinds. A duck blind is a place where hunters are able to hide and stay out of sight from the ducks and out of touch from the weather. Think of it like a baseball dugout with camo all over it on the side of a lake or field. We sat in the blind as shooting light came and passed, and honestly saw little action. A few birds passed here and there, we shot two, but again, were sort of wondering where all the ducks were. After about thirty minutes, we kept hearing the near deafening noise of the thousands of geese on the fields nearby. I turned to Farmer John and asked if he wanted to maybe just poke his head around and look at 'em, he smiled and agreed.

We left the blind, and went over to a slough (a muddy side channel) on a neighboring field. This is where it got good. We arrived to a place among the cattails and marsh grass, threw out a couple of decoys, and set up on the shoreline. The birds that had seen us arrive were initially a little skittish, but either they left or forgot about us, because it wasn't long before there would be a steady stream of birds flying in within range. One fell, then another two and so on down the line until I had successfully shot my daily limit. I'll be honest and say that I've never shot my daily limit. Admittedly I was beginning to think I might have been cursed because of my track record with duck hunting is so dismal. The curse was broken, though, and we began to accumulate a small pile of feathered friends as the morning matured.

All in all, we shot nine birds that day, and had a boat load of fun doing it. I was able to get out in God's creation, marvel and the beauty of the region, and truly and legitimately experience some of the storied Delta duck hunting. It is a hunt I will not soon forget, and will surely be a new standard for my hunting. Interestingly, it also happened to be a bit prophetic that I was able to hunt duck on the morning of the BCS Championship game, where the Tigers of Auburn ate some duck of their own. In light of their victory, we'll dedicate the song of the week to "the loveliest village on the plains". KL, this one's for you, WAR EAGLE.