Duck Hunting as Teenagers Homosassa River 1970's

Duck Hunting Homosassa in the 70's Buzz and I would go duck hunting every day we could. Hunting season only lasted a couple of months.  Almost every day we would get the boat ready after school.  We had it made because his Dad(Mr. Duncan) owned a bait shop(since 1953), that he just happened to have a dozen rental boats and a lot of shotgun shells he sold.  Mr. Duncan was gracious toward us.

The male or drake is one of the most handsome ducks of all.   The hens are less colorful and mostly brown.  They are very good eating and our method was to pluck every single feather off each duck. Mrs. Wilma(Buzz’s Mom and mine too) could bake them so they were moist as duck can be dry.  Every Christmas dinner wood duck was the main dish.

Just after school, we ran two routes, up or down the river. We would check every creek for wood ducks with either 20 or 12 gauge shotguns loaded with No. 6’s.  Their would be almost always a few woodies in the smaller creeks where they would be feeding on acorns from overhanging oak trees.

In pursuit, the wood ducks would stay on the water until we were just in range, making it a challenging shot from the speeding boat.  We were pretty good shots.  At the time, I did not know shooting from a moving boat was against the law.  We just did it and the subject never came up. 

I was almost always sitting on the bow seat with Buzz shooting over my head those years, I partially lost my hearing in one ear.  We never knew what earplugs were.  And ringing of my ears was sort of normal from each hunt, until one day it did not stop.  Oh well, it was well worth it at the time because I got first crack at them. Hitting the rock was not so bad.  But if you are reading this and have not fired a gun.  Always use ear protection as you fire your first shot and every shot thereafter when you can.

Our quarry while running the engine wide open, would stay on the water until we were just barely in range making it a challenging shot each time, as they are wild birds..  We were pretty good shots but always a few got away as they are very fast.

One day Buzz let me drive. The tide was up enough to cover the prop sized rocks that otherwise would be exposed on low tide.  We were in Petty Creek and Buzz warned me to veer left, rock ahead.  I plied straight ahead and he hollered, “ROCK RIGHT HERE, BAM!!” He said to me, get up on the bow, now. We did not hurt anything. Funny was what it was.

Some afternoons we would ride up the Halls River if it was cold. Once arrived we idle into the marsh flags to camouflage us from the eagle eye of the speedsters..  We would wait patiently until the sun had set.  I imagined it was past time to shoot a duck legally, but we fired away as they would whistle just before landing in the small creek giving us a head’s up.  And all you could see was the silhouette of them.  We would find most of the downed birds using a spotlight as we could motor through the freshwater marsh slowly

At anytime, there use to be two or three shorthair liver/white hunting dogs that laid around the bait house for generations. Shorthairs make great pets when they are not hunting.  The names I  remembered most, were Rex, Vic and Ike.  Vic was old and pretty much retired in.  So one day Buzz decided we would bring him along to retrieve ducks. He was just laying around anyway. The plan was to see if Vic would jump out of the boat to retrieve the wood ducks that landed into the marsh. To our amazement, Vic did real good bringing back most of the ducks never mashing it too hard in its mouth. He's not a breed to be a retriever. He's a pointer for quail. Maybe he knew it was his last chance to hunt. He sure had a nose on him.

One day Vic got hurt. Out in the marsh, sawgrass has sharp edges on each side and can cut ya. After several hunts with Vic we noticed a sore about the size of a dime infected his right nut. Turned out that Mr. Mac had to have Vic castrated. Buzz’s Dad lectured us, saying we ruined his quail hunting dog.  Mac(Dad) was right, as ole Vic lost all his pizazz and just laid on the wood floor of the bait house except to eat and back up to a tree both legs down..  

There’s plenty more tales to write about.  More later…