Fox Collectors

Picture from last Saturday. Ducks, wooden decoys, and a Fox. Got invited to hunt some private land along the Cache River...classic Arkansas duck hunting...blind built in between cypresses on an oxbow, and when the sun came out, the birds started falling in like every hunter dreams. Who doesn't love watching green heads and blue wing patches shining in the sun when they make the swing, or the lead hen talking back to the callers? Oh, and I forgot to mention they know the birds won't come in until 8:30, so it was a pretty leisurely wake-up time and ride to the blind.

The weather forecast was for sunshine, so I took my 1929 Fox HE (Jim Cloninger was nice enough to part with it and help my Fox addiction). I had some handloaded ITX shot in #4, 1 1/8-ounce loads to try out, and...they worked. Five of us worked on the birds until 11 or so. For the most part, the mallards were coming back in twos, threes, and fours, and the men in the blind were on that morning. There wasn't the, "which duck should we shoot?"...three birds in, three birds down. The three widgeon were a bonus...drake, hen and immature drake. I rolled the drake cleanly right over the decoys, and two other people downed the others.

My best shot of the day was on a hen that isn't in the picture. A pair came in, and another person and I shot the drake, but I was slightly later on the trigger pull, so he gets the credit. Two others emptied out on the hen, and she peeled up and out of the hole over the blind. I swung through, saw her through a mat of branches, and touched off the left barrel. The man in charge said, "we got the drake!!", and I said, "and here comes the hen..." as she helicoptered down in a shower of twigs and landed in the water beside the blind.

We finished up just two birds shy of a five-man limit in the sunshine and 65-degree weather.

Thanks again, Jim, for parting with this sweetheart...I am still getting used to her, but it is definitely a love affair...

Wonderful pictures. Helluva hunt for sure.

Thanks for sharing your adventure with us. Now, will you share the gun with us?

Nice going, Rick! That reminds me of the time I hunted green timber of flodded oak trees near Stuttgart. Occasionally a Greenhead would try to make an escape thru the branches of the oak trees. When killed, they come crashing down breaking many branches on the way down. Jim

Great account of the hunt, Rick. If that is the gun I am thinking about I have been in the blind with it on Beaver Dam Lake, in MS. It is so much fun using the HEs on ducks. Mine takes ducks every year. Your "play by play" account rings bells with this 65 year old, and still active, duck hunter.

All my best, SRH

Wow! I proud of ya! Great job!

I have hunted the Cache several times myself. We put the boat in at the Rex Hancock Black Swamp landing, about 4 miles from Gregory. From the landing you motor straight ahead, through the most majestic stand of black gum trees I've ever seen, into the Cache, turn right and go downriver to the blinds owned by a friend. We go right past Trappers Island, a place hunted by Nash Buckingham and written about by him. When I was first there about 10-12 years ago I wondered if another HE Fox had hunted the area since BoWhoop.

One of the blinds on the Cache, which is just out of the picture to the left.



SRH

Mr. Hillis,

My gun has been to Beaver Dam, and I haven't...guess I will have to fix that. Is there a group going next year that would entertain one or two more?

I'm pretty sure we have run the same areas of the Cache. I think we were just upriver from that private ground this weekend. It isn't "traditional" oak flats...there are flats mixed in, but it is far and away tupelo gum and cypress swamp, and for some reason, watching the birds work in with the big cypress trees (I think Nash would have said "towering") is very fitting. I know two HE's have been in that stretch in recent years...mine, and a straight-grip 3" HE that belongs to a friend of mine in the Little Rock area.

Best,

Rick

I don't know of a trip that has been planned to Beaver Dam at this time, Rick. But, you never know what might happen. You will be made aware of it if I hear of anything.

The Cache is a special place, and I agree about the lack of oak flats. But, the ducks love it anyway. It is a "cathedral", to me. I saw a video that my hunting buddy took with his cell phone, two years ago, from the blind in my picture. Four of them limited out in a few minutes after legal shooting time, then just sat in the blind and let the mallards light in the hole. Many hundreds, possibly over a thousand, lit as my friend recorded it on his cell phone. He has hunted that part of Arkansas for 40 years, and he told me it was the most amazing sight he has ever seen. That's saying something, IMO.

SRH

That's incredible.

I've been lucky enough to see the "tornado" a couple of times, where four or five mallards start off, another 10 join in, then 30 more, then 30 more...the callers have a tough time tracking which birds are which in the swirl. Hens talking back to the callers, and a funnel of ducks from 100 yards up to the treetops just keeps getting bigger. And then, for some reason they all decide that landing is fine. There is a literal pause; everything is dead quiet, even the earth seems to hold its breath for a minute, but the ducks come pouring down in a rush, and the noise is amazing...birds in the hole, filtering down through the trees, bouncing off limbs, fluttering, hovering, picking up and then just plopping down.

I've never seen anything close to a thousand. The biggest single group I've seen was probably pushing 300, and they scattered out through the trees for easily 50-60 yards. After the flush and volley of shots, there were still birds on the water that came up in twos and threes all around. Trying to get your eyes off the ducks and on the gun to reload quickly is the test of a hunter's nerves.

Now, the negative of all that is that 200+ ducks just got educated...I really do enjoy groups of 2, 3, or 4 much more, but every now and again, seeing a big group just fall in is just...heaven. Like one of the guys from RNT duck calls says, "If that don't light your fire, your wood's wet..."

Rick