DuckSouth.com

Ramsey got me thinking talking about us duck hunters verse the others. We no doubt hold tradition and personal hunting possesions way more to the heart as compared to others. I look around my apt and jus think what I would do if my first a-5 that now has been retired was stolen. Or my lanyard and bands were gone. There are no telling how many hunts, hours, blood sweat and tears spent afield to amass the string of bands I have been very lucky to compile. The ole waxed coat and waxed shell vest that has keep me from the element and always had a shell close when needed. This goes with out even talking about the thousands of pictures of hunts past or crazy times at camp. No doubt one of my most prized are my hunting journals. All prior hunts from 1996 to date are recorded.
When in college I was getting my oil changed I picked up a outdoor life. Started thumbing through it and happened across a story of a ole duck guide from arkansas who filled out a journal of all his duck hunts. Being to old to hunt now he could at least say from 19??-19?? He saw over 18000 ducks die at the end of his parties gun barrel. This totally blew me away. I too want to be able to know what I'd seen killed from there forward. With that being said now I can say one day X gave it up in front of my eye balls.

What's y'alls special keepsakes that has become important in your duck hunting life.

another good thread bud.

two of the most important keepsakes i have are my journals and my photos. i document every hunt too, and have for as long as i can remember.

the other thing i wouldn't know what to do with if i every lost them are my photos. i haven't always taken a camera, in fact, i just started around 2000, but nowadays i never go hunting w/out it. good day or bad, i don't leave unless i take at least one photo.....of course, the good days more are taken........and, i try to take a photo of every retrieve gauge and trapper make. you guys see the good photos, trust me, there are a LOT of bad photos. i can look around my office at home and see a photo of me and ramsey holding up some brant and remembering exactly what happened that day......or the photo of me with my first harlequin......or last year in the sink box in nova scotia w/ a passel of eider and oldsquaw. there's one of me and gauge up in montana holding a limit of greenheads that i vividly remember sustained 40 mph north wind with gusts up to 60 and the temp was -8. there's a photo of me and trapper on his first hunt. we hunted w/ ramsey and delta in brietz pit, and shot 28 birds total. limit of ducks and specs with snows filling out the strap. looking at that photo, i can remember the wad of greenwings that came in on the first volley and how so many of them didn't make it out. i remember how heavy the fog was and how humid it felt. on some of my favorite public ground, i've get a pic every year of gauge sitting on his dog stand on one particular tree. i only go to this place a few times a year when conditions are right and gauge always with me for the first time of the year. after the hunt, i get a photo of him on that tree. when he first started going w/ me to this place (he turns 10 next month), this ole gum tree was barely able to hold him and the dog stand up (the old man tree stand bottom, barely able to cinch down enough to make it work). 10 yrs later, gauge has a face of gray hair and the old man is barely able to let out enough to fit the stand on the tree. those series of photos make me both sad, happy, and humbled all at once...particularly when i think about having to face going there w/out him one day.

first black duck and canvasback, first retrieves, longest retrieves, prettiest straps, bootlip beatdowns, fire side chats, sunrises and sets, camps, etc, it's all there.

i could keep going....each photo brings about a different memory, and i'm so glad i started taking a camera.

you and i have talked about our love of waxed clothing. i'm pretty unapologetic about it and i know you are too. i've got a pair of waxed pants i've had forever...2 yrs ago after the season ended, i actually went on a diet for the spring/summer/fall in order to make sure i lost enough weight to be able to continue wearing them........it was getting close.

again, man, great thread that made me think a little.

gator

Great topic Ty but i brings back bitter sweet memories for me. What i wouldn't give for my original items acquired on Christmas 1974. A Jentzen,Mallard Tone,and a few meager bands on a cheap lanyard as well as 6 crepe mallards are gone forever. They were lost, misplace, or stolen after my freshman year in college 1980. I'm still in a funk about it. I stress to my 2 up and comers to keep tabs on the hunting items i give them because we are making history and these will one day be their most prized possessions. Not because of their dollar value, its all about memory value.
I don't journal but my oldest ute started his last year. My journal is with the camera but i didn't start it till the early 90's.........20 yrs to late.
Looking back on almost 40 years of duck hunting, i wish i would have been more in tune and appreciative of the moments as they played out. I envy you guys that caught on early in your duck hunting youth.

Also my most prized band is the only one I did not kill. It's a 16 year old Canada band givin to me from a old duck hunter that was like my local grandfather so to speak. He and his wife were close friends with my grand parents as well as his sons were fraternity brothers and duck hunting partners of my dads.
As a kid anytime I would go to his house I'd always ask to see the band and hear the story. One day in college over a break I stopped in to vist and see how they were doing. As usual I asked to see it and hear the tale. His wife spoke up "give to Ty before something happens to it or you". With the band I have the original certificate. Four years later I was a paul bearer in his wife's funeral. One year he followed. But now atleast a part of him still gets to chase the fowl he so loved too.

Duck hunters are by far the craziest group of hunters out there...Just when I think I have seen everything...another duck season rolls around and I see something even more mind boggling. I have an old wooden call with no markings at all on it. The smoothest mellow duck quack I have ever heard from a man made object. Old man Goerge gave it to me in 1976 when I was 10, miss ya brotha. I always thought I would pass it down to my kid or maybe even a grand kid, but, I am coming to realize that I will be buried with it...wouldnt sell it for $1000, and, has led to the demise of many a duck. NEVER head to the marsh without it

my lanyard is my excalibur. I don't know what I would do if I lost what is on there..

The bands aren't just jewelry, but stories of birds and the hunt they were taken on; from muddy bean field crawls, a blue wing banded in sask. 2 weeks prior, a frozen fish pond mallard band, a great friends band that couldn't have come at a better time, a wood duck band that was Cash's 11th bird and the buddy that let me win the coin toss... All stories that I will cherish forever.


My calls have define who I am as a waterfowler and the legacy I want to leave behind as a true killer.

every call I have is irreplaceable and pricless for
different reasons... Hand cut mvps that I blew in worlds, a blessed daisy cutter from butch's safe, cut down olts that take me back to duck huntings roots, and a personalized new call that shows my
efforts are paying off.


Also, my dog Cash. The Lord blessed me with a better retriever than I could ask for and is truly my best hunting buddy. I can't stand to think about the day I lose him.

my filson jacket and pants have gotten better looking after each season from stories breaking in the wax cotton cloth. I hope to my grandkids can wear that jacket..


All these things are just part of what keeps my driving force going year after year.

My granddad's bands are my most prized possession. He gave them to me a week before he passed, along with his olt. I prize his bands way more than the few I have. My leather duck strap is pretty important. I fished that thing out of 5' of water in 20 degree weather about 7 years ago. My waxed canvas blind bag is on up there too. I'm not the kind of guy that buys new gear every year. I hate having to break in "new" stuff. As a matter of fact, i usually just have to buy shells.

I feel ya'lls pain on the dogs. My old dog Reagan is retired now. Most of y'all read the story of his last hunt this past year. He can hardly get up the steps at my house now. Even though I have his son to take his place it still doesn't take away the little ting of pain I feel when he looks up at me with his gray muzzle when I'm loading up to leave for camp.

Memories and legacy, passing it to my own children. Photos embrace each. The rest is just stuff that serves as reminders when I've a drink too many or forgotten. I've got an old strap from original owner of Duckstrap.com. He called it the Callie Special, one of a dozen, made to commemorate a dog he'd just put down but one of his crew had not showed to the sandbar funeral event and said I could buy it. One morning hunt, Dunc said he wanted one like it and I told him there wouldn't be anymore but he could have mine one day. Said no, he'd put it somewhere soecial when that time came. I can' think of anywhere better than his coat pocket - and keep adding his own children's ducks to it God willing. It's soaking on mineral oil right now along with a few others. I was at the sink watching my grandfather finish cleaning birds once (whole-picked only, always, giblets kept seperately). I must have been about 8 or 9. Asked what was on that duck's leg and he dismissed it as "government tag", tossed it our with the guts. Every time I pick one up-and am always elated-I remember the old man's words. Used to jokingly tell SB that bands just meant someone else had touched it before me, somehow taken the wild out of it. I like my "stuff", and got a camphouse full of it, but walking down the hall and looking at the photos, friends, family and dogs then and now, some sadly no longer with us, kind of brings it home best for me. But after moving it in case the levee breached, and now moving it back, makes me realize the rest really is just stuff.

Here you go, Novacane, my first Yentzen bought in Magee, Ark. in '67...Took a couple of Greenwood guys from Critz Hall over to Pop's one weekend to hunt. Can't remember where the Lohman came from. Found the Faulk's pin whistle on East Pearl marsh back then and Pop's gave me the Olt with the slide bar that makes it woody squeal...

Surprising more call makers don't use this simple wooden whistle style to create new ones...Later DL

Didn't realize they still make da whistle...
http://www.steveweissmusic.com/product/ ... nd-effects

Not sure I would give duck hunters sole possesion of keeping traditions and personal hunting possesions above other hunters. No doubt there are a lot of things handed down from generation to generation among waterfowl family, but turkey people....I mean real turkey guys probably hold on to tradition and possesions as well as any. I have duck hunted at home, by that I mean on our home place all of my life, just as those before me did. Certain spots, some calls, some guns, some hunts all hold special thoughts, but it is not something you really have to think of because it is so much integrated into your life that it is what it is. I think Novacaine said it best, probably some of the things I do not have any more would be cherished, first real duck call, first decoys that were "mine". On the other hand, some turkey hunts, call, spots, etc have as much tradition and feeling as those same waterfowl assets. I am glad I have such to hand down and people to enjoy "now" with.

Great read guys, really brings it all home. Whats important and whats not!

Another great post! My wife and I have discussed several times what we would grab in the event of a sudden fire. I have always said that my calls, laynard, pictures, and the first two guns my Dad bought for me would be my priorities. If I had enough time to go back it I would have to grab a waxed canvas coat that will be on it's 9th season this year. My father has a few dozen flambeau decoys that he began using in the early 80's that are a pretty big deal to him and still get used every year.

One thing I regret not doing is taking more pictures. It's kind of sad that I started hunting with my father at 4 years old and the only pictures we have from hunting begin when I was in high school.