Duck Trip Redux (Part 2)

As you may recall, I was told that the 'cabin' where we were staying had no TV. Don't know about you, but if I am told this, I pretty well conjure up images of of one those shacks at the beginning of 'Deliverance'.

Well, as I pull into this place, totally enclosed by a 7' high cedar fence, I am in pretty much in shock. The 'cabin' must be 4000 square feet..maybe bigger. Out front sits 3 'duck-boats' on trailers and 3 4-wheelers, also on trailers.

I go to the door and am greeted by the owner, 'John'. Now, I don't know this guy from Adam and my buddy, who has set this up, isn't here yet. Feeling a little awkward I apologize to him for showing up early. "Thats nonsense...I'll help ya bring in your stuff. Its 1st come 1st serve so you pick any room or bed ya want".

We get all my shit unloaded and 'John' tells me make myself at home...."walk around, take a tour". I do, and this fuckin place is unbelievable. More fuckin bedrooms than I could count. This place sleeps.........................28! Has a kitchen with double ovens, 3 refrigerators, a freezer, a stand-alone icemaker, big screen TV with satellite and a liquor shelf that would put most bars to shame. I am in fucking 'hunter heaven' :) Plus, it has a 'mud room' thats probably 25'x15' with every kind of imagineable hunting gear known to man.........in multiples. Outside was a deck that overlooked the river. When I say deck, I mean a structure that had to be 50' long and 40' wide. Afuckingamazing! I was getting a 'man crush' on this guy ;)

After a hour or so, most everyone had showed up. We threw on, maybe 20 pounds, of ribeyes on the grill (this guy has 4 of them)...and 2 of them have trailer hitches on them. We eat dinner and decide to play some poker. It wasn't the nickel-dime shit I had been told, but a real, true-to-life poker game.

Everything was perfect until.......................one of 'Johns' buddies showed up...with his 'I look like a hooker' girlfriend. Now, she was HOT....BUT...here we are in the middle of bumfuck Arkansas, and this gal is wearing designer jeans, very low-cut top with HUGE boobs...and, no shit, camo fuckin heels with zippers on the side. Gimme a fuckin break! And...she liked to do 'shots' of Crown Royal.....many, many shots...and she wanted to play poker...sigh.

This gal fancied herself the female version of 'Amarillo Slim'...'cept she sucked, which is normally a good thing when your trying to win money but when she lost she started that "you're a lucky motherfucker, fuck this, fuck you, etc etc etc". Her boyfriend kept trying to get her to shut the fuck up, but she was having none of that. Finally, I said 'fuck it' and went on to bed, not only because I was 'mildly' irritated but it was 11:00 PM and we we're gettin up at 4:00 AM.

Got up at 4:00 and it was a brisk 16 degrees. Ate breakfast, put on my 125# of clothes and off we went. Turns out we had to get in john-boats and travel upstream for an hour. Lemme tell you, if you think 16 degrees is cold, try it sittin in the front of a fuckin boat with water spraying all over you. At one point I thought my coat had snagged on something because I couldn't lift my arm. Nope...my sleeve was frozen to the fuckin side of the boat. By the time we got to 'the spot', my facemask was solid ice. Boy.....I'm having fun now!

We unload all our shit from the boat and its still pitch black out. Actually, I was enjoying myself. I guess it was the 'anticipation' thing. About 6:30 you could finally see well enough to shoot.....and shoot we did. Fuckin ducks were everywhere and just when you thought it was slowing down, another flock would come haulin ass through. We finally called it a day around 10:30 and everyone pretty much had their legal limit of ducks.

We repeated this scenario for the next couple of days, only varying the places we'd hunt. The guys I met were the nicest people you'd ever come across. They didn't want me driving my truck cuz 'it would get dirty', so they'd tell me to take one of the pick-ups (keys were in it). One place in particular we were hunting required standing in water up to your knees. So they made sure I wore a pair of their neoprene insulated waders...just shit like that. Whatever they had, was yours.

I've been hunting for years and this trip has to be right there at the top of my favorites.

When I left the owner said "Mark your calendar, we'll do it again next year". Lets see, January 14th falls on a Thursday again next year :)