1971 - 1974 I was both a starving student and a duck guide. Virtually every day of the season found me pulling into the Chateau Charles hunting club in Lake Charles, LA sometime before 4:00 a.m. so I could have breakfast with my designated sports for the day and have plenty of time for the drive to Johnson's Bayou and the salt marsh of the Southwest Louisiana coast. As I remember, a morning hunt earned me the princely sum of $25 plus tip - an additional $10 on a good day. This was in the day of 10 point ducks a hundred points per gun. A good day was thirty birds and a goose or two. As you might imagine, one met all sorts. I remember a great hunt with a retiring railroad engineer from Ohio who had two days with me rather than a gold watch. I have always hoped it was worth it to him. Then there was the jerk from out west who decided to pattern his shotgun using my decoys as targets. All kinds.
One morning I arrived to find a middle-aged woman sitting at my table in a suede hunting outfit that could only have been created by a tailor with a aspirations for a career at Neiman Marcus. The head guide smirked as he gave me my assignment. Breakfast was fine and I did my usual guide report as we made our way to the coast. I had warned her about the condition of the john boats at the dock, landing and launching pads for half a dozen wired and very muddy labs. To her credit and my youthful, and no doubt, chauvanistic surprise, she sat down amongst them without blinking an eye.
The twenty-minute, 25 HP driven, run through the marsh to the blind was the typical full out sprint through saw grass with the wind filled with spray, spider webs, and unidenfied flying objects of the tropical night insect variety. No complaints came from the bow where most of the trail-breaking, windscreening, and bug catching was taking place.
At the blind she uncased what I now know was a Browning Diana in 20 bore. I loaded up my Model 12 heavy duck anticipating a lot of shooting to fill "our" limit - the young chauvenist again.
First bird was a lone teal coming straight in from the almost darkness. The little 20 barked and the bird hit the water feet from our blind. To myself I thought, "Ok, easy in-comer with its wings set." The next bird was what we called a black mallard, but which was really a mottled duck. They grew up in the Louisiana marsh and seemd to be hard wired with a map of every blind location within the parish. We only shot them very early or on very nasty days when their radar seemed a little confused. This was early and he was high, but the little twenty folded him cleanly as he came over. I came up with another rationalization.
The next flight was a mob of pintails. Being typical pintails, they circled us and teased us and circled us again. Finally, they broke over blind twenty or thirty strong and I whispered to take them. My sport quickly stood, fired right, pivoted, and fired at the other side of the flock. Two sprigs splashed into the bond decisively. Looking at the birds at either end of the pond I allowed that I had just one question, "why take one bird out to the right and the other virtually out the other side of the blind?" She calmly responded that they were the only two "really mature drakes that she saw." After I closed my mouth, I set down my Winchester and sat back and enjoyed one of the finest shooting exhibitions I have ever seen.
I heard her story on the way back. She was the second wife to a Texas oil man who taught her to shoot and taught her to hunt. They apparently had a good decade together before he left her a wealthy widow with a love of the outdoors. In the next decade she had won numerous skeet and trap competitions and hunted all over the world. Our little corner of Cameron Parish was one of those stops.
It was a good lesson for young man about to go into a profession and eventually to have a daughter. I have tried to never again underestimate anyone with regard to their appearance or their gender. And I suspect my little girl can hold her own, professionally and recreationally, with any number of us on this site.
As several have noted in this string, ducks, blinds, and the early morning make a powerful setting to take the measure of much in this life. South Louisiana was such a place for me. I worry that those opportunities are vanishing at an ever increasing rate.
Last edited by Joe Taylor; 07/08/07 11:25 PM.
