HISTORIC DUCK HUNTING STORIES THE GOLDEN AGE OF DUCK HUNTING

HISTORIC DUCK HUNTING STORIES
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HISTORIC DUCK HUNTING STORIES THE GOLDEN AGE OF DUCK HUNTING

Most duck hunters want to know what happened in the olden and golden days when the old timers pursued their love of duck hunting, but not everyone has the time nor patience to read through a bunch of books and outdoor journals. So, sit back and relax as a passionate duck hunter of 60 years, Wayne Capooth, author of eleven historical waterfowling books and outdoor writer, recaps from his 40 years of research the hidden riches and treasures of duck hunting by the old timers, who sadly have all passed away! The podcast will cover all facets of duck hunting.

  1. OCT 25

    E55 THE OLD HOME PLACE HERB PARSONS

    A True magazine article that chronicled Herb’s accomplishments tagged him as the “Showman Shooter” and the moniker stuck. On the way to an exhibition, Herb would stop at a supermarket where he collected what he called his "groceries." He bought oranges, grapefruit, potatoes, cabbages, turnips, and several dozen eggs. Wherever he went, the town’s people were about to witness one of the greatest shooting exhibitions of all time—a combination of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, Annie Oakley, Doc Carver, P.T. Barnum and a Vaudeville comedy routine. In 55 frenzied minutes, Herb typically shot, non-stop, more than 15 Winchester firearms 52 different ways at more than 800 targets, scoring 99 percent on them. The ones he missed, he said, were “hens.” Herb was hired in 1929 by Winchester to be a salesman for the Mississippi territory. Winchester advertisements from the era called Herb the “Winchester Wizard.” He came to epitomize the idea that being good with a gun was a way to become a better man, and nothing could better illustrate just how valuable our Second Amendment really is to all Americans. Upon Herb’s early passing in 1959 at age 51, he had been a Winchester man for 30 years. His love of hunting and shooting was only surpassed by his devotion to family and church.

    38 min

  2. SEP 18

    E54 GREENBRIAR CLUB JOHN OLIN KING BUCK

    With the end of War World II, Olin leased from Crowe in 1945 some 1,880 acres, of which 1,100 acres was timber in Prairie County, approximately six miles southeast of Hazen. It was immediately christened the Greenbriar Club, so name by John Olin’s younger brother Spencer, who was, besides being a duck hunter, an avid golfer and his favorite golfing course was the Greenbriar Club in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. Over the years, however, the locals knew it as the “Winchester Club.” John Olin was the president of the Olin Company and Winchester-Western small arms and ammunition company, while his brother Spencer was vice president. Having no clubhouse, Olin rented two floors of the Riceland Hotel in Stuttgart. Olin always boarded in room 410. He had a number of famous guests over the years, including Herb Parsons, John Wayne, Gary Cooper, Clark Gable, Nash Buckingham, General Nate Twining, General Jonathan Wainwright, Richard Bishop and many others. Olin often brought along Walter Siegmund, who was general sales manager of Olin Industries. He was also a great sportsman and judge for the National Duck Calling Championship. Having no clubhouse, Olin rented two floors of the Riceland Hotel in Stuttgart. Olin always boarded in room 410. He had a number of famous guests over the years, including Herb Parsons, John Wayne, Gary Cooper, Clark Gable, Nash Buckingham, General Nate Twining, General Jonathan Wainwright, Richard Bishop and many others. It was at the Greenbriar Club where Olin's Lab, King Buck, retrieved his first duck and his last duck over a five-year period. King Buck successfully completed an unprecedented 63 consecutive series in the National Championship Stake and was the National Retriever Field Trial Club champion for two successive years, 1952 and 1953, in a feat not to be duplicated for nearly 40 years. Overall, King Buck finished 83 national series out of a possible 85. His royal name was given its due, when, in 1959, it was decided that the federal duck stamp for that year should commemorate the work of retrievers and their contribution to waterfowl conservation. And so, for that occasion, the single time that the Migratory Waterfowl Stamp has ever been other than a duck, Maynard Reece painted a portrait of perhaps the greatest duck dog of them all: King Buck. In 1955, Olin built a one-room clubhouse with a fireplace to replace staying at the Riceland Hotel. In the early 1960s, the IRS disallowed his business deductions for the club.John sold his Prairie County duck paradise to multi-millionaire Robert “Bob” Brittingham, of Dal Tile of Dallas, Texas, and a hunter of great refute. A magnificent lodge was built in 1983. Today, the club is still in existence, and owned by three brothers of the Kemmons Wilson Company (Holiday Inn fame) and two other individuals.

    19 min

  3. AUG 12

    E53 THE BEST OF THE BEST--CHAMPION OF CHAMPIONS

    Three thousand duck enthusiasts slowly gathered around the stage at 2:00 p.m. to watch some of the best: Art Beauchamp, Chick Majors (1945 Word Champion), Tom Burge (Missouri State Champion), Carl Zieglowsky (Iowa State Champion), and W.C. Cross (winner of the championship in 1957 and 1958). Then there was Daryl Cates, of Memphis, the youngest ever to enter at 13 years, having won the TennesseeState title. Dressed in their best hunting togs, forty men, with testosterone flowing, tooted, and chattered four calls – the open water call, woods call, mating call, and the comeback call. However, one contestant – number 13 – dressed a little different, strolling to the stage in a band outfit. Although unusual, many in the audience thought it might be divine guidance, especially after 50 or more ducks passed overhead when the Arkansas State Teachers College band played earlier during the day. Contestant number 13 was a high school senior, 17, proficient with a clarinet and a caller, having captured five previous calling titles – the first at age 12. Each year thereafter, a trophy was added to the trophy case. Nevertheless, this was the first entry in the world championship.

    27 min

  4. JUN 6

    E52 THE HOLY GRAIL OF PUNT GUNS

    Hopefully, someone can unravel the two great mysteries of this extraordinary and historic relic--a monstrous three-barreled punt gun: where is and what happened to this Holy Grail of a unique and unusual monstrous punt gun and who was the gunmaker Lizerad? ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­

    26 min

  5. MAR 19

    E51 ROCKET MAN

    Many gave him the sobriquet the “Rocket Man,” the one who developed the Saturn V rocket that put six teams of American astronauts on the moon from 1969 to 1972. He was the father and superstar of our space program. Werhner von Braun and three others flew from Huntsville, Alabama to Walnut Ridge AFB, where they drove to Jonesboro on December 26, 1959. The four traveled to Wallace Claypool's legendary and famous Wild Acres, located near Weiner, Arkansas, where Claypool told Von Braun they would hunt tomorrow in his favorite hole: “Hot Spot.” Monday morning at the clubhouse, von Braun said with so much anticipation and eagerness, “I can hardly wait. This will do us some good. Let’s get it done. It will be shooting time before we know it.” Von Braun, Wallace Claypool, “Miss Sally,” Wallace's wife and also manager of the clubhouse,” and Claypool’s Lab George went to the green-timber hole Hot Spot, later painted by the famous artist Maynard Reese. The other eleven hunters split into three groups, each with one of Claypool’s and Miss Sally’s Labrador retrievers—Ike, Rip, and Buck, the latter being the son of Winchester-Western John Olin’s Buck on the 1959 Federal Duck Stamp, the first and only time a dog ever appeared on a U.S. duck stamp. Beneath a clear blue sky with a morning temperature of 39 degrees, Claypool’s and Miss Sally’s calling had the ducks helicoptering down through the timber, where Von Braun made some very skillful and tough shots among the limbs. His shooting with his Browning Auto 5, 12-gauge was “uncanny,” knocking down a limit of four mallards with his first four shots. Soon thereafter, Claypool and Sally got mallard limits, shooting Winchester Model 12 pumps, while the others returned with their limits. At the clubhouse, he remarked earnestly, “I had more fun shooting today than ever before. This hunt was fantastic. Getting away to Wild Acres, which has become famous across the nation, you just leave all your stress behind. This couldn’t have come at a better time. We have been so busy that there has been no occasion where we could escape from the pressure. I can’t wait until our hunt tomorrow. Miss Sally is one of the finest shooters and duck callers I have ever been around. ‘Clay’ taught her well.”

    27 min

  6. FEB 22

    E50 MISSISSIPPI RIVER CANADA GOOSE HUNTING AND INTERGLACIAL WARMING

    Mud flats of the river islands and the sandbar inlets were where sports found Canada geese during the olden times. All along the Mississippi River and its tributaries were located numerous islands and sandbars that were the feeding and wintering grounds for Canada geese for many years immemorial, and since pioneer days it was noted for the goose shooting it afforded. In the olden days, there were comparatively few goose hunters, because goose hunting was no sport for the novice. Hunting ducks was considered child’s play compared to getting the Canadas within the range of the shotgun. The duck hunter might hide behind almost any kind of blind and scatter his decoys out over the water in almost any old fashion, not so with the goose hunter. He usually selected a long mud flat or sand bar and dug in. That is, dug a pit deep enough to hide himself and fellow hunters. A tarpaulin or some other covering was usually used to cover the opening of the pit. Goose decoys had to be placed out properly according to the way the wind was blowing, or the geese would not be enticed within range of the hunter’s gun. Today, not one single pit will be dug on any sandbar or mud flat on the Mississippi River, as the hoped-for return of ten thousand Canada geese to Wapanocca and the Southland remains a dream, and Canada goose hunting, a very ancient and respected occupation in the olden times, is no more!  With the situations that exist today and which will continue into the future, the best historical information we have indicates that waterfowl populations can only be preserved by regulating the number of shooting days and bag limit. We should rejoice that this has been effective in the past and that the means is within reach of our hands and determination, and we should not close our eyes to it. Waterfowl live by three tenets: where can we get food, water, and rest with the least amount of pressure. They have lived by these three for thousands of years. The weather patterns have shifted and so has the migration. It will be a difficult task to reduce the number of days and the limit as businesses and organizations will demand that their money-machine keep running, and waterfowlers will be reluctant to give up days spent in a blind. We better do so, for the waterfowl are giving us a warning and telling us that the changes are already here. The question is will we respond and resolve.

    30 min

  7. FEB 6

    E 49 IN THE LAND OF SWEET REMEMBRAN CES

    A TIME TO REFLECT When the shadows from the hills have gown longer, caused by the departing sun, kindly reflect of your days spent amid the solitude of Mother Nature, which were the sweetest enjoyment to you. Sometime, somewhere, in that undiscovered paradise high in the heavens whose scenes are painted by His hand, shall you find a happy hunting ground where the axe of the lumberman has not penetrated; where the solemnities of the immense woodland—its brooding calm, its sequestered depths, its flickering lights and beckoning shadows—remain unchanged year after year; where the sky is filled with countless wild geese and ducks; where, with the shades of shotguns whose like are made no more, and with pointers and retrievers whose like dwell not now upon this earth, shall you hunt the ghosts of wildlife that has no closed season.   “If a man could be born when he’s old  And gradually grow young,  The wisdom he’d gain and the lore he’d attain  Are not easily said or sung.”

    18 min

  8. JAN 23

    E48 PLOVER JOE AND DE PLOV

    There lived in Chicago an Italian about 40 years of age in 1890, who kept a little fruit store on Wabash Avenue, and was known in the game market and among Chicago sportsmen by the sobriquet of “Plover Joe” or “Italian Joe” as he was interchangeably called. His real name was Joseph Paoli. He was considered the authority on one particular bird of passages, having hunted golden plovers since 1868, at age 18. He hunted for the market, and except for a rare outing at jacksnipe, woodcocks, and ducks, he never hunted anything but golden plovers. In 1890, there were plenty of Chicago men who would wager that there was no man on this green earth who could compare with Plover Joe in the art of plover shooting. That was his business and had been for 22 years, ever since he was old enough to shoot. He sent to the Chicago market more plovers than all the other Illinois shooters. They did not know how to hunt them, and he did. He killed upwards of 1,500 plovers in a week, three hundred in a day, and 9,000 in the spring of 1891. A bag of 40, 50, or 60 per day did not satisfy him, even at $1.50 to $1.75 a dozen, which the big hotels and markets paid him for all he would bring. He had many friends and no foes and lived by market-hunting birds. He was an authority on every game bird that flew and the only man in Chicago who seemed to thoroughly understand and love the work of plover shooting. Through the winter, Joe sold fruit, but he longed for the warm days and the green fields, and April saw him afield early. For 20 years, he had lived in a modest hut, built entirely of shingles, at the edge of a swamp near Summit, a favorite resort of plover shooters. He lived only with a beagle hound and the best double-barreled shotgun.

    43 min
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About

Most duck hunters want to know what happened in the olden and golden days when the old timers pursued their love of duck hunting, but not everyone has the time nor patience to read through a bunch of books and outdoor journals. So, sit back and relax as a passionate duck hunter of 60 years, Wayne Capooth, author of eleven historical waterfowling books and outdoor writer, recaps from his 40 years of research the hidden riches and treasures of duck hunting by the old timers, who sadly have all passed away! The podcast will cover all facets of duck hunting.

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