A Duck Gun?

Posted on December 1, 2004 by J. Tackett 

I have received funny looks for many years standing around trees in knee deep water, rice field pits, cypress brakes, and pot holes. I'm sure much of that can be chalked up to an occasional blue baseball cap (throwing the first thing I can find on the dash of the truck on my head most mornings), but most of those funny looks are aimed at my duck gun.

I see the question on this board often: What type of gun do you shoot? What's the best gun for the money? What is the best duck gun?

Before I give you my opinion on this very important matter, let me say that this is nothing more than an opinion, no better, nor worse than yours.

Maybe this will explain my perfect duck gun.

I grew up hunting with old men, stewards of the woods so to speak. Men who sipped whiskey, and cleaned every duck they shot, not just the ones that tasted good. They referred to shotgun shells as "c a r t r i j i s".

Crusty, impolite, fellows with worn looking old C.C. Filson canvas jackets with holes in the elbows from honey locust snags, and canvas covered rubber Rainfair hip boots. They had faded Carhart coveralls at camp with chain-saw bar oil stains on the elbows.

They blew home made brass reed duck calls, and cracked barreled Olts that stuck, and squeaked on every 5th note. There were no double reed calls allowed. If you needed training wheels for your call it was a very good idea to leave it at home.

They had big strong labs, with names like Buck, Sam, Jiggs, Bart, and Gus. They all fought, broke, ate ducks when their handlers weren't looking, and most of them were horrible by today's standards. But, they were beautiful to watch tear through a slough, and looked like Gladiators waiting for the ring when they sat on the trunk of downed cypress.

Best of all they shot beautiful guns. Old Winchester slides, and model 11 Remington's, silvered A-5's, and doubles. Big, long, heavy L.C. Smiths, and a fancy Parker or two, it was the stuff little boys dreams were made of.

Like them, I like shiny blued metal, and pretty walnut. I like dings, and scratches in the stock of a fine old gun, especially after ten years of oil has soaked them. Rusty sling swivels, and stocks worn smooth of the checkering. I like doubles that fall apart like a falling brick when the slightest pressure is applied to the release. I like pumps that work themselves and that unmistakable "BANG-chuck" a greasy old worn out A-5 makes.

I'm not ready to let it all go. I'm not ready for head to toe camo, and a black shotgun just yet. I like history, tradition, and stories...yea, stories.

I want to hear how that chunk of forearm was broken, on the first real duck hunt you and your son went on. I'd love to hear the story about that retrieve that Blue made the last day of the season back in 04. How you were so taken back when he popped through the reeds with that cripple after being gone for 30 minutes, you left your gun, and it spent the night in the hole with two inches of rain falling on it.

I have a gun that was once one of the finest of its kind. It was worth a couple thousand dollars 15 plus years ago. Now it's beaten up, with a few pits in the barrel from Maine, and Louisiana's salty air, innumerable scuffs from falling out of the boat into waist deep water on the White River were my best buddy got wet digging it out for me.

I even have a crack all the way through the stock. That crack was made as I threw the gun as far as I could because this puppy I had named Smokin Crops A' Yella would not stop on a whistle the entire day.

That gun will die with that crack, and its worth 50 times more with all those memories on it, than it was back when it was pretty and new.