The climate is warming, and unchecked development threatens to eat up appealing wetlands. That’s why they call it hunting, not killing. “It’s not one of those sports you just pick up and go do,” says Kraai, from the wildlife department. Compared to Texas’s expanding population, the proportion of people who hunt here is shrinking steadily. Still, participation levels are down nationally, in some places significantly. Around the Texas coast, the seasons are historically long, the bag limits high. There are diehards out there hunting, and plenty of waterfowl to shoot. Though Oyster Bayou’s regulars might not admit it, their sport is approaching an existential crossroads. Nobody celebrates Wood merely turns and tells his pals that round of fire “felt better.” He reloads, squats back down in the blind, and searches for more. The rest, flustered, scatter in various directions. Their limp bodies fall from the sky like downed fighter jets. Over the pond, the guides take aim and pick off five before I can even blink. They pump and glide, inching closer, suspecting nothing, cutting through the pale blue. (I recommend the duck gumbo, hearty and savory.) As our three-person party loads into McBride’s pick-up, he assures me that hunting here “is as easy as it gets.” I swallow hard and take his word for it.Īn hour later, Wood spots the best wave of the day, a pack flying south in formation, from our 12 to our 6. He’ll even process the fowl that’s eventually bagged. He’ll manipulate the habitat so ducks have appetizing food. He’ll sweat all summer installing the fiberglass-covered pit-blinds to shoot from. Instead, serious hunters can outsource the heavy lifting to Campbell. “The only thing that’s guaranteed,” Campbell says, “is that the pond will have water in it.” Gone are the days when you could knock on a rancher’s door, offer a fifth of something brown, and find yourself a quiet, flourishing bog. Managing your own lease is time-consuming and carries its own risks. Public plots are often crowded the birds feel the pressure. Hunting at a private club like this one-$275 a day, $125 extra for meals and lodging-costs a pretty penny. Some of Campbell’s very first clients still make the trip to see him every fall. Oyster Bayou now serves around 1,000 customers every hunting season, from November through January: lawyers and ship pilots and oilmen, many from Houston. In 1974, he quit his job as a motorcycle salesman and started guiding full-time at Barrow Ranch. The 2013 book Texas Market Hunting: Stories of Waterfowl, Game Laws, and Outlaws quotes one Houston hunter, around the time of Texas’s Independence, who recorded that it “would sound like thunder as the ducks came to roost, and we could hardly sleep for the noise they made.” And today, according to Kevin Kraai, waterfowl program leader for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, wetland habitats remain “very abundant and dynamic.” At the southern end of the Central Flyway, hordes of birds migrate onto southeast Texas marshes each winter, down from Canada and the blustery western plains. There are few better places to learn about duck hunting than in this corner of the state, and with a company as skilled as Oyster Bayou. I layer up and follow him into the pitch-black November morning. McBride tosses me a brown nylon jacket, at least four sizes too big. Gene Campbell, the club’s founder and owner, introduces him as one of his most “colorful” hunting guides they’ve worked together for 38 years. He’s an imposing dude with a gigantic bald head. A few minutes before 5 a.m., Burl McBride walks into the lodge, around the fire pit and through the gear-filled garage, past the taxidermied bobcat mounted near the fireplace.
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