We arrived in Crossett about 11:00 p.m. because Sonny had some trouble getting the boat ready AND we had to have some of his moose stew before we left.  All the way to Crossett, Sonny entertained Andy with tales of his big game hunts around the country.  The moose was killed in Alaska in September, and that story was the grand finale.  Sonny is a good story-teller and Andy was hanging on every word.

When we got up at 3:45, Mother (wonderful mother that she is) cooked us some hot breakfast with bacon and biscuits and coffee.  Don’t wives still do that kind of thing for their men-folks?  I know all of you would be glad to get up at 3:45 to cook breakfast for your men.

The hunt on Friday wasn’t very good.  The place where Sonny had hunted before was grown up and the water was about five feet higher than it had been before.  So we spent a lot of time motoring around the flooded timber trying to find a good spot.  Never did really get a good one.  But we set up and got some shooting, but no ducks.

When we were riding in the boat after the day’s hunt, Andy and I were sitting on the middle seat facing backward to keep the cold wind off us, with Tess between us.  She decided she wanted to play.  She would use her big head to push against first Andy and then me as if she were trying to push us out of the boat.  Then she would wallow herself into our lap and try to lick our faces.  After playing with one of us, she would move to the other side of the boat and start picking on the other.  All three of us had a big time with that.

After the hunt, Mother had a fabulous meal of roast beef, black-eyed peas, butterbeans, and G-90 corn on the cob with Sonny agreed was the best corn he ever ate.  Then we walked across the field to check out the progress Gale is making on his new house.  He gave us the tour telling us where everything was going to be.  The house is just “in the dry” so the inside walls are still just bare two-by-four studs.  Gale showed us where he plans to sit in his rocking chair on the front porch and kill deer down behind the pond.  His house is not 50 yards from the deer stand where Andy killed his deer last year.

Then Sonny picked up a stick and demonstrated how well-trained sweet Tess is.  He made her heel, sit, then he threw the stick far out into the pond.  Tess dutifully waited eyeing the stick until Sonny said, “Fetch.”  Then she jumped into the water, got the stick, and obediently returned to Sonny.  I tell you, my Daddy was IMPRESSED!

Friday night Andy, Sonny and I went to Jonesville (near Warren on the Saline River) to enjoy a fish fry by some of his friends at work.  It was a guy evening.  Ten of us guys off at the river cabin, eating fish and telling lies.  And these guys were big talkers all.

The biggest talker and most interesting character was “Shine.”  His real name is Frank E., but he assured me that nobody called him by his real name.  He works at GP in Crossett and knows my Dad and my brother.  He was the fish cooker and did a great job on the 60 bass filets.  He explained to me that those fish were the most expensive fish he ever fixed.  They cost $12.50 per filet!  That’s because he caught them on one of those rare days when the bass were biting everything in site.  By 8:30 they had 30 bass, ten over the limit, and they were just getting started good when the game warden came back and checked their catch.  Cost them $350 each!  Expensive fish, but I assured him they tasted so good that they were worth every penny.

Shine will tell you his life history at the drop of a hat, and did.  I told him I noticed that the riverbank was washing away by his house.  Has already washed away under the corner of his concrete patio out back.  He said, “It don’t worry me none.  What do I care?   I don’t care one thing about material possessions.  I’m not worried about it at all.  In fact, I don’t worry about anything… ever!”  Then he waxed eloquent about how he moved away from Ashley County once, but then he realized that everything he likes to do is right here.  So he came back and has never left.  All he likes is hunting and fishing, especially fishing – only bass fishing.  Goes almost every day.  He and his buddies have fished this 20 or 30 mile stretch of the Saline River for the last 27 years.  He knows and has names for every hole and turn in the river.

And they have really caught a lot of fish out of this little river.  They have the pictures to prove it.  All over the cabin were Polaroids of picnic tables covered with 60 or more bass!  If you fish the river often enough, you occasionally stumble upon one of those extraordinary days when the fish are biting like crazy.  They have those days memorized and rehearse over and over how many they caught and where and on what.  “Remember June 25, 1986 when we caught the sixty bass in that picture right there?  We had 20 bass by noon, and 60 by 1:30!  And that’s not counting the ones we turned loose.  Yes, that was the first time I caught two bass at one time on the same plug.”

The stories flowed and Andy silently soaked them all up.  It was classic men’s camp stuff with a unique blend of characters telling the stories with new zeal because they had a fresh audience.

But finally our 3:45 a.m. wake-up time caught up with us, and we headed back to Mother and Daddy’s house.

Saturday
Our wake-up call came mighty early again at 3:45.  But my loving mother was there with hot breakfast to wake us up and give us the strength to do what a man’s gotta do!  By 4:30 we were on the road again.

Last night, Scully gave us a tip that someone he knew got their limit recently at Pine Island. They parked at the boat ramp and just walked straight out about 200 yards and did really well.  So we were headed for Pine Island today, but when we got there we saw several trucks without boats or trailers, so we figured that little tip had been spread around quite a bit.

Well, Mother’s pastor said he found some ducks back up this way a bit and just up a slough where the culvert is on the Pine Island road.  So we stopped there and hiked out into the woods following the slough until we found a likely looking spot.  We tromped through the woods heavily laden with guns, shells, decoys, thermos and cokes, my camera case,  and a deer stand which attaches to a tree to serve as a platform for Tess.  Several times we were chest high nearing the upper limit of our waders.  But we found a clear spot, put out the decoys and stood by trees waiting for daylight.

Even before daylight got there, wood ducks were buzzing through the woods.  One even tried to light on Sonny’s head!  Another mallard tried to come in to the hole, but caught a limb high up in an oak tree.  Andy could have killed that one easy, but Sonny had told us not to shoot until he said to.  Andy waited, Sonny forgot to say, “Shoot ‘em.”  When it lit on the water, Sonny gave the go ahead and Andy blasted it.  He wounded this duck, but it got away.

Then as I stood by a tree facing away from Sonny and Andy (still very dark), I heard a splash where Sonny had thrown another decoy just about 20 feet from me.  It was too dark for me to really make out the decoy, when I heard Sonny say, “Shoot him, Mickey.”  Then I realized that it was a duck as it scrambled into the air.  I took a shot but it was really too dark to see.

Then more wood ducks came into the hole on the other side.  Andy and Sonny blasted away at them, getting them both, although one was wounded and Tess had to chase it down.  Tess bounded through the water with glee, jumping until the water was over her head, then using her wide-webbed feet to swim quickly through the water.  She chased the duck down while Sonny gave directions, “Back!  Back!  Fetch, Tess!  Fetch!”  Soon she came swimming back with a drake in her mouth.

For about 30 minutes, there was lots of action with wood ducks zooming through the tree tops.  Many landed just out of shot for us both to the right and to the left.  But we got plenty of shooting.  A couple of wounded ones got away, but we came home with three ducks.

We thought that we had found a real honey-hole, but after about 7:30 the ducks stopped moving completely.  We tried to call in a few that flew over, but never got any to really work.  Mostly we watched the dark woods come to life as the rising sun hit the water.  And we took long breaks and sat on a log and talked.  Sonny gave duck-calling demonstrations and even played Jingle Bells on the duck call.

Tess has the patience of Job, sitting there on the log, silently watching and waiting while ducks zoom and guns boom.  She doesn’t move from her appointed place until Sonny calls, “Fetch, Tess!”  Then she bounds into the water with gusto.

About 11, we finally gave it up and headed for the house.  Even though we didn’t get a lot of ducks, everyone declared the hunt to be highly enjoyable and in that regard a great success.

And the main thing was that Andy got his first duck!  Boy, was he proud!  And he loved all the action and shooting.  It was really neat to see so many ducks working the area and falling in around us.  Andy was really excited about all this.

Mother had another great meal for us back at the house.  Mother came out of the kitchen with a bag of peanut brittle for Sonny and Daddy stuck a two-foot chunk of rich pine log in the boat.  These pine logs came from the bottoms where they fell naturally many years ago, but contain so much sap that they just won’t rot.  That makes the very best fire-starter there is.  Sonny was duly impressed with the grand hospitality of the Anders’.  After Daddy showed Sonny his home-made wood-splitter and tractor, we were ready to head back for Little Rock.