As the sky turns orange and pink, we shoot mallards and tiny, zippy teal for their sweet, tender meat. With every bird that falls like a feathery stone, the dogs leap off the blinds and lope through the water to retrieve it in soft jaws, their tails wagging fiercely. The ducks are so stuffed with rice from their nightly feed that their craws make a crunching sound like a bean bag chair when we hang them in the crook of a nearby willow bush. There’s a camaraderie that happens on a hunt that is very precious. I get great pleasure when my uncle calls out, “Good shot!” And I don’t even mind his more frequent and rather unnecessary, “You missed!”
There are a lot of ducks traveling the Mississippi flyway (the capital of American duck hunting is nearby Stuttgart, Arkansas). As a result of the nationwide ban on ddt and the efforts of conservation-minded folks—mainly hunters—who have worked to preserve breeding grounds farther north, the population has been growing. Population figures determine how many ducks hunters can shoot during the season (mid-November to late January in Arkansas). Last season the limit was six ducks per day.
Over the course of a weekend we will shoot in two locations, once in a flooded woods environment like Well Island, and once in the thick floating mats of duckweed and the tangled buck brush that surrounds the reservoir. The hunting is difficult because the birds are flying fast overhead—it’s a little like shooting a speeding shoe—but it is a great spot for watching the splashy Arkansas sunrise, with its gaudy colors and flocks of banking ducks. There are usually so many waterfowl flying overhead, they sound like traffic and look like a black storm cloud descending, but this one isn’t ominous at all. This spectacle of nature is why so many big shots have come to Claypool’s to hunt, among them Jimmy Carter, Wernher von Braun, various DuPonts, and baseball great Preacher Roe, but not Bill Clinton. (“Skeets don’t like Bill Clinton,” says John Riley.)
Two hours after dawn the hunt is over. Then the hunger starts. And, oh, what a divine hunger it is! Not a depleted hunger, or a gnawing hunger, but a hearty hunger brought on by exercise and fresh air—really, a kid’s appetite, if I remember correctly.
Outside, the dogs inhale their kibble breakfast, and inside the house Mary Minton is working on ours. Mary is a curvaceous brunette in her mid-forties. She’s got a robust laugh and a fine sense of her womanliness.
“This is my fifth year at Claypool’s and I love it,” she says while turning over thick-cut bacon that is frying in two inches of bubbling fat. She also prepares dinners when hunters spend the night—southern classics, all. “I make chicken fried in bacon grease and hot apple caramel pie and coleslaw. That’s my specialty,” she says, turning the bacon. “Last year a guest from Colorado offered to marry me for that recipe.”
Settling down to this breakfast is a true reward. The table, by a picture window that looks out on a duck-resting pond, is set with thick, diner-style ceramic, matching in spirit only. Pitchers of orange juice and milk are set out, as well as bowls of jelly, jam, and marmalade. It may be country, but nothing is ever served in its original container. Then Mary comes out with the goods: a platter of scrambled eggs and another of fried country eggs, a basket of steaming homemade biscuits, a mound of curly bacon, and a bowl of white gravy with the handle of a ladle sticking out of it. Everyone is pretty quiet for the first few minutes of furious piling on plates, and then the stories start—about the hunt, the dark water, the red sunrise.
I don’t always kill a duck, which is okay with me, despite the pitying looks of my fellow hunters. But my uncle tends to get his limit, so it’s at his house that we assemble later with the rest of the family to enjoy the fruits of this particular harvest. Game that has been shot at Claypool’s over the year makes an appearance. Because I know what’s involved in putting these birds on the table, I feel tremendous respect and appreciation for my dinner; more so than when I buy it at the supermarket. And what a dinner it is! Breasted dove wrapped in bacon, teal stewed with sauerkraut, livery mallard with turnips, goose roasted with apples, all served with baby butter beans, collard greens, and hand-formed corn pones. Norfleet always serves an airy coconut cake that he gets from a neighbor. There is bourbon drinking before dinner and wine drinking during, and there’s always teasing—lots of teasing, of both the gentle and the rough varieties. But that’s family: You’re never off the hook.
I always carry home a heavy duffel bag; one way or another, I end up with enough ducks to last the winter. As I feast on these lean fowl, I’m transported back to Arkansas, to the dogs, to the birds flying by, to the warmth of the morning kitchen, and to all the quirky charm of my southern kin.
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