FREE Youth Waterfowl Clinic!

THIS EVENT WILL BE HELD ON SATURDAY, JUNE 25TH!

Duck Junkies Tennessee Youth Field Day Registration Form Now Available Online!

Children ages 6 to 17 may attend at Montgomery County Shooting Complex in Southside, Tennessee Register early and attend FREE!

(Exhibitor and Sponsor spots available! To become an Exhibitor, Sponsor or Volunteer, click here.)

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Update: Waterfowlers Prepare Special Gift for Deployed Soldier

Heather Carver

Update: Deployed Soldier Returns Home...To Some Hard News

You may all remember the story we featured here about 'Waterfowlers Prepare a Special Gift For Deployed Soldier and His Daughter".

SSgt. James Bent returned home his 7th deployment on February 15. SSgt.Bent and Waterfowling friend KY Pro Staff Michael Carver will be featured on the new Lifetime TV series 'Coming Home'. His emotional trip home to his wife and four daughters also came with some hard news.

In the previous article we told you about Jim's daughter, Abby, who was mauled by a labrador retriever at a young age. Mike's dog, Reload or "Pooh", was to provide a puppy to Jim to help his daughter overcome her fears and Pooh is a dog Jim trusted. The original breeding in the fall of 2010 didn't take so we would have to wait on spring.

Exactly one week before SSgt.Bent was to return... Pooh got sick. He took some bites of food and had trouble breathing.

Mike rushed Pooh to the vet that had been treating him for only mild laryngeal paralysis. Pooh had been having small episodes but nothing like this. Mike administered oxygen to the dog on the twenty minute drive... with no improvement.

The vet tried everything to help Pooh overcome his episode... and Pooh struggled to get any oxygen. With his heart overworked, and his body exhausted...Pooh was getting worse. The vet advised that there was nothing else that could be done and it was only a matter of time, now.

With a teary eyed vet, an emotionally exhausted Mike, and even a crying vet tech.... Mike told the vet to give Pooh the shot so that he wouldn't suffer anymore. I left for the vet myself but I didn't make it... but I was home when Mike came home to lay Pooh down. We buried him at the corner of the field with some mallard curls...

Pooh touched the lives of so many people including SSgt.Bent. It was hard for Jim and for us not to be able to give him a puppy from the one dog that he completely trusted. Pooh's original mate will be bred to another dog in the spring and we'll get 2nd pick of the litter but no dog will ever replace Pooh not for us or for Jim.

Pooh was about to turn 11 in March. He hunted for 9 years. He retrieved his final two ducks on Thanksgiving Day 2010.

In memory of Reload. February 9, 2011

I'm going to miss my buddy...

(You can click the photo for a link to a video of pictures to the song "Duck Blind")

Duck Bible Will Help Fund Youth Field Day

The Duck Bible Newly Releases Edition, The Woman Waterfowler's Duck Bible, Sales To Fund Youth Field Day in Tennessee

The Duck Bible and The Duck Bible: Ladies Edition will help to fund the youth field day to be held in Tennessee on April 23, 2011.

For every one book sold it will pay for THREE youth to attend the field day. Children as young as 6 and as old as 17 may attend and it will be held at Montgomery County Shooting Complex in Southside, Tennessee. It is convenient to Fort Campbell as well as the Nashville area.

There will 75 spots reserved for advanced reservations but up to 150 kids will be admitted!

Event Schedule

From 10AM until 6/7PM kids will attend the following classes:

Duck Identification

Conservation

Boating Safety

Hunting with a Retriever

Waterfowl Hunting Rules and Laws

Shotgun Safety

Duck Calling

Each child will be taken to the range and will be able to participate in clay target shooting.

Prizes for students so far will include some Drake kids gear, One free duck mount, Case of Ammunition, and some duck calls. If you would like to donate an item, supplies or funds for the clinic please contact Heather Carver TN Pro Staff at (615) 403-6499. Remember we want this clinic to be FREE for the kids and for every book sold that pays for two children to attend the clinic!

This will be an event put on solely by Duck Junkies! So c'mon fellow junkies... lets take em'!

Heather Carver

TN Pro Staff

Duck Season over Time for the Geese

Well this was the worst possible weekend for it to decide to dump snow, ice and sleet all over the mid south. Since I am still shopping for a truck that has off road capabilities I was unable to leave my house. It was just too dangerous for me to leave in a rear wheel drive vehicle when everything is coated in ice. I talked to everyone I could that did hunt though.
My friends in Wynne Arkansas killed 40 something for the weekend, and a few people tried to hunt east Tennessee but the ice was too thick for these skinny guys to break. I shot a wood duck off of my back porch while cooking steaks(my mom asked me to cook steaks on the grill so i decided to take my gun in case some Canadians or woodies got up off of my neighbors pond and they did but only one wood duck made the mistake to get close enough)

Since I had nothing better to do I went ahead and made 100 new Texas rags to add to my decoy spread this weekend I am not one with great amounts of money so a giant full body spread isn't an option all though i would love to have one! My snow goose spread includes: Texas rags, shells, silhouettes that lay on the ground as well as ones that stand up so that the geese never lose sight of them even when flying over head. Hopefully a few of my good friends will join me and we will ave a good time trying to kill some snow geese.
Cade Patton

Another slow day (TN, AK)

Well I finished up the Tennessee duck season with one green head and a big honker. I went up to the forked deer river and tried to shoot a few ducks. We saw alot of ducks mor than I had been seeing in Arkansas. Most of the ducks were all old ducks that have been there for most of the season and they were very weary ducks.
I talked to some friends in Arkansas that did not have a very good day eithor they had shot 5 ducks and considering i shot 5 ducks in 4 trips a few weeks ago they did ok. Next weekend will be the last weekend for Arkansas duck season and then it will be ready for spring snow goose will have a few good pics and videos from spring goose I'll be sure to post a few to show everyone. Everyone have a fun and safe time.
Cade Patton

Tennessee

Well the last few weeks have been real slow. In fact the whole season has been probably the slowest season I have seen through my whole hunting life. It was very cold here for over a week this year and the birds just did not seem to show up like they have in the past. Even with the low bird numbers I have had a great season and now only one more week to go so lets make the best of it.

Earl England

well it could be worse

This year is slowly coming to an end for the arkansas duck season for 2 weeks we were supposed to have the highest numbers we were supposed to ever see but that didnt happen... Instead we got the coldest tempuratures we have had in a while. all of the ducks kept moving with the weather ending up much farther south than here. i have not heard of a good report in 2 weeks except for 2 hunts on the mississippi river where apparently all of the ducks went. 8 people ended up taking 44 ducks one day. This weekend it was so cold and noone has seen more than 50 birds a day in the places i hunt that i didnt even bother to get up and hunt it seems that it was a stupid idea because i would usually do anything to hunt. After hunting for 7 days and not shooting a duck I gave up. Maybe as the tempurature rises the ducks and geese will come back and i will get a last chance on some birds! I hope everyone has the best of luck for the end of the duck season and in the new year. I have my spring snowgoose spread ready to go!!
Cade Patton

Well it has been a while since I posted and we have had some decent hunts and some not so great hunts. Of course the not so great hunts are all still better than not getting out at all. The weather is perfect but it seem the birds are hard to come by. Went today with temps in the teens and blowing snow only seen 6 ducks total but did get a nice drake mallardxblack cross and it was great. Last week a friend and I went hunting on a pond. I got my limit of mallard and he got 2 mallards but one of his was banded with a Jack Miner band. It has been slow around here but we are still having a great season anyway with trophy birds and awsome hunts.

Earl England,

Tn Prostaff.

The good news is...

Well with all the rain we had last week we went out to hunt some flooded fields. Man it was slow at first but around 9am the ducks started to fly we decoyed a pair of mallards and my partner and I pull up to take the shot when I drop my duck and his duck is hit hard and I watch it sail off and go down across the field. We set out across the flooded field and start to get close to where I thought the duck fell and noticed my partner was walking way to fast in a flooded field. I thought I should tell him to slow down when all of the sudden he goes completely under. He stepped in a ditch and the worst thing is he dropped his gun. Now his gun is at the bottom of a ditch that is over his head with no way to get it out and he is soaking wet we had to leave and not get anymore ducks. The good news is that the water went back down now and he found his gun today.

Ducks here!

Finally we have lots of ducks in Arkansas, Tennesee, and Mississippi. I have hunted in a few places the last 2 weeks going from public land in tennessee to private land in arkansas so i have had a few good opportunities to shoot ducks. Last saturday I met a few guys in a local spot here in TN and we had a good time shooting a few birds but should have had alot more than what we did. This week my friends who didn't have exams shot some ducks in the same public land so next week i will hit that land hard and try to kill some birds there as well as in Arkansas were i am leaving to in the morning for 2 days. The season in Arkansas, Tennessee and Missisippi are all going to be really good the next week or 2 due to the large amounts of ducks that have moved down for the winter. I have heard this week there will be the largest population of ducks that there have been in the last 15 years. At least in our area.

3rd week

Well I finally got to get out for another hunt after some time with sickness. We hunted yesterday and saw alot more birds than had been around in a while. The cooler temps have pushed quite a few divers in the area. We ended up taking some bluebill and some buffleheads man how humble can a man get. Those divers do make a man think about how he needs to get out in the off season and do alot of shooting.

Well It was a cold one for TN

Finally we got the cold weather we have all been despiratly waiting for. It was 20 degrees saturday and sunday morning, sure you northerners got alot colder but for us it was colder than a witch's tity! I was ready to go hunt both days with a few good friends of mine and we all had fun although we barely got to shoot anything. Saturday we hunted a beaver slough where there was the only open water we could find. The only problem we had was it was 4 feet of water and another 4 feet of mud! I threw out a bunch of decoys with 2 foot of line on each decoy and they all floated back to us except for one so at the end of the day i tried to walk out and get it and ended up flooding my waders! stupid mistake! The paint on the decoy wasn't very good so in my anger of being cold and wet i told my friends to kill the first duck of the day.... It still took us 4 shots to completly sink a decoy!(all the other times it only takes one pellet from shooting a cripple to sink them) So we ended up going home empty handed. We had a nice fellow tell us about a new WMA in Fayette county TN were noone hunted and it was an old hunting club so we decided to go try that the next day. My friends Caleb, Fallon, Patrick and I all walked in not knowing where we were going but i found the spot the guy told us about. Fallon had to get back to Oxford that afternon so he left early. We had had a bunch of woodies skim over the trees but we eithor werent ready or someone didnt see them so we never got to kill anything there. There were however 2 or 3 guys hunting near us that thought they could kill anything that they could see we had 2 mallards fly over us andthey were way to high to shoot at but soon after they flew over these dumbasses and they were shooting at ducks at least 150 yards above them. That wasnt the only time. There were 2 Canadians that flew about 50 yards directly over our heads well i though TN canada season didnt open till january but i was wrong and once again these guys were shooting at geese Big geese none the less at over 300 yards away!!! I was pissed so i ended up picking up all the decoys and leaving but once again on the way out in 3 feet of water i tripped and fell face first through ice into the water! The decoy bag strapped to my back did nothing more than hold me under for longer but i finally managed not to drown and got up and went straight to the truck and straight home still being able to make it to church! lol we could have shot a few duck sunday but i a, definatly looking forward to going back to Arkansas to kill some ducks! and maybe go on a gooe hunt.

With the weather being so warm for the last few weeks we did not know how well we would do. Opening day comes with my hunting party in the middle of a freshly sown wheat field with just a hope of some geese coming in. We ended up at the end with a 4 man limit of canada geese and 1 bonus snow to go along with them. What a great day to be out in nature with a sunrise that was hard to believe. Man I love waterfowl hunting!

Almost Time

Well a lot has been going on the last few weeks to lead us up to opening day. I took a week off work and went on a deer hunting trip and took a deer of a life time with my bow. Now I am waiting until Sat. for the season to start and I don't know if there will be many birds or not. Right now there is not much here but a few geese, not many ducks at all. Can't wait just hope the holiday goes great for everyone and then we can really get after the waterfowl hard and hope for great fowl weather.

Waiting for Season (TN)

With the cooling weather and falling leaves it seems that everyone that waterfowl hunts start to get an itch that can not be filled until season opens. Our season does not open for a few more weeks and man can I hardly wait. There is a few birds around here but we hope they start getting here in numbers soon. I hope everyone's season opens with great numbers of bird coming into the decoys.
Earl