Red River WMA offers late-season hunting for mallards that is unrivaled anywhere in the Bayou State.
The boat blind lunged forward as we jumped up to pick out greenheaded targets in the decoying flock of mallards.But nine shots later, only one mallard lay on the water. The remainder of the flock were back-peddling furiously and gaining altitude fast to clear the tall timber opening.
My roly-poly chocolate Lab Coco was launched from the boat by a swift push from my boot. She was not a ‘retrieving machine’ by any stretch of the imagination, but she was automatic on dead duck retrieves, and worth her hefty weight in gold for us not to have to untie/re-tie the boat blind to pick up birds on this cold, breezy January morning.
And she was smart enough to realize on this morning she would rather be warm and dry than cold and wet, so that first plunge required just a little assistance from above.
“What happened? How could I have missed?” ‘Cajun’ Charlie whined. “Those big birds were practically hanging over the decoys in slow motion at 45 yards!”
Charlie lives in Lafayette, and routinely hunts his marsh lease adjacent to Vermillion Bay. Flocks of mallards hovering over the decoys in the tall timber was not something he was used to seeing, and the frustration of not dropping one of the big “slow-motion” birds on every shot was running feverishly high.
“Poor execution,” my brother Kevin (better known as “Pud”) growled.
The three of us were duck hunting the greentree reservoir area on Red River Wildlife Management Area on a bluebird January day. It was the perfect kind of day to be hunting mallards here — bright sunshine, 35-degree temperature, and a north wind of 10 to 15 m.p.h.
We were hunting a small, round hole in the timber no more than 60 yards in diameter on the north end of the greentree with a 16-foot boat blind and about 50 decoys.
But unfortunately, our planning and execution on this hunt had thus far been much less than perfect, despite the conditions.
Red River WMA encompasses 41,681 acres of low-lying swamps and hardwood bottomlands in east-central Louisiana, and is sandwiched between the Mississippi River (east boundary) and Red River (west boundary). The Black River is only a few miles to the north, and the Atchafalaya River only a few miles to the south, making this WMA a virtual bottomland delta island.
As the surrounding rivers swell with winter rains, backwaters can flood large areas of this WMA, resulting in thousands of acres of flooded timber habitat that attracts waterfowl migrating down the river flyways and holding in the nearby rice fields or federal wildlife refuges. The LDWF also maintains a flooded greentree reservoir on the south end of the WMA for waterfowl hunting.
Although Red River WMA is better known for its big deer and excellent squirrel hunting, it can provide unsurpassed duck hunting when weather and habitat conditions are favorable.
We have been duck hunting this area for 24 years, and have learned most of our lessons the hard way — including that water levels and weather will dictate where and how to hunt the area, and that a wide variety of equipment is required to fully capitalize on the diversity of habitats and changing hunting conditions within the area.
But on this frigid January morning, some of those lessons had either been forgotten due to late-season fatigue or overlooked in our haste to get out and get set-up in time.
“Poor execution? Whaddaya mean by that, Pud?” the Cajun retorted. “I planned to execute those greenheads alright!”
“Well, to begin with,” Pud started in with his analytical tone of voice, “those ducks shouldn’t have been on the other side of the decoys at all. If we had planned and positioned the boat and decoys right, they should have been inside the decoys at 20 yards in your face. We get an ‘A’ for effort, but an ‘F’ for execution this morning.”
Kevin was an engineer by trade, and there was absolutely nothing he loved to engineer more than a good duck blind and decoy spread.
And of course he was right. But since there was no wind when we had set-up pre-dawn, and we were running a bit late due to some ‘technical difficulties’ ( I had forgotten my duck calls and had to return to the camp), we had not factored the mid-morning north wind into our set-up plan. So now, the decoys and boat were both on the wrong sides of the hole.
It was now almost 9:30 a.m., and when we saw the decoys starting to bob and the north-wind waves growing on the water an hour or so earlier, all of our experience screamed that there was a problem.
But after 20+ mornings of moving decoys and equipment around the swamp this season, we all sat content to do nothing and hope for the best.
But now it was painfully apparent that we were set up for less than the best. The early morning flight had been almost non-existent, and if conditions weren’t so ideal, we might have just been content to continue to sit and hope. But one thing that has been indelibly etched into our brains over all these years of hunting this area is that it is never too late in the hunt to make a blind or decoy move — especially when timber hunting mallards on a day like this one.
After all, our best hunting here has typically been 9 a.m. to noon, when the sun has the decoy spread illuminated like a Las Vegas casino, and the wind has the blocks swimming like a pool party of 8-year-old kids.
We might not see a bird for an hour or more, and then out of nowhere, a flock can drop out of the heavens, make a couple of swings around the hole, and fall into the decoys like a slot machine spewing quarters. And while that doesn’t always happen every hunt, it happens often enough to keep us coming back for more.
“And secondly Caj,” Pud went on, “if you hadn’t jumped up so fast to get off the first shot, the boat wouldn’t have rocked forward and thrown off our aim. Marty and I (everyone we hunt with has nicknames, and mine was compliments of our Grandpa Martin) might have had three or four more birds on the water.”
“Wait just a minute, Pud” the Cajun retorted immediately, “if you had tied off the boat securely to something besides that measly buttonwood bush, it wouldn’t have been so tipsy.”
The Caj had a point, and it silenced Pud for the moment as he looked around at the short, knotted rope tied to the buttonwood. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that rocking boats are not conducive to hitting fast-moving targets.
In the Red River greentree, water depths can range from over 8 feet deep (in the center of the area) to only a few inches deep (on the perimeter of the area). Hunters can wade and hide behind trees and brush in the shallow peripheral areas. But when hunting out of a boat blind in the deeper areas, boats need to be secured to solid trees when possible, or we sometimes wedge the boat between large buttonwoods and secure it tightly front and back if there are no larger trees.
But on this morning we were running late, and had hastily tied to a large (but flexible) buttonwood limb as the wood ducks began their morning mass exodus from the greentree roost, hoping to get our ‘bonus birds’ early.
“And one more thing,” I chimed in, “next flock we are going to organize our shots. I think we were all shooting at the same one or two closest greenheads.
Next flock, I’ll shoot at birds on the left, Pud you take the right, and Caj you shoot the middle.”
The conversation was now sounding more like a Duck Hunting 101 lecture tape. We had already learned these lessons over and over in the past, after all. It might not have been apparent by our actions, and as scary as it may sound, the three of us combined had over 100 years of duck-hunting experience.
The greentree reservoir is on the south end of Red River WMA, and encompasses about 1,000 acres of flooded swamp and hardwoods at a full-pool stage. The area is actually a natural swamp (Dismal Swamp), which periodically held water even before development by LDWF.
Consequently, it is not your classic greentree reservoir consisting entirely of flooded hardwood trees. The central portion is low, open canopy vegetation consisting of buttonwoods, swamp privet, water elm and willow, and dotted with occasional large cypress trees. There are numerous small natural openings and low areas that when flooded several feet deep, result in open-water ponds ideal for setting decoys. This area is very attractive to ducks preferring an open canopy swamp habitat like bluewing and greenwing teal.
The periphery of the greentree is primarily flooded tall hardwood trees. Several years ago, LDWF cleared a series of openings or ‘holes’ in this taller timber to improve utilization by both waterfowl and hunters. These holes range in size from about 1/8 of an acre to nearly a full acre in size. They form a ring around the central low canopy swamp area of the greentree, and are connected by an open canal that facilitates boating from one hole to the next.
This area of the greentree is very attractive to mallards and wood ducks seeking the shelter of flooded timber to rest in.
Our debate over what had gone wrong was interrupted by what sounded like a steam locomotive. It was Coco with the solo downed greenhead huffing and puffing her way to the front of the boat. Pud lifted the camo net allowing Coco to climb into the boat blind from her ramp.
She delivered the bird to my hand while shaking off what seemed to be five gallons of ice water. We all grimaced and turned our heads momentarily to shield our sunglasses from the shower.
“You need to do somethin’ ’bout that, Marty. I usually don’t take my shower ’til after dinner,” Pud snipped. “ Popster would have given me the bird and then gone to the back of the boat to shake like a trained retriever.”
“Well, Coco isn’t Popster,” I responded. “And if Popster were here, you would probably be doing CPR and mouth-to-mouth on her now to get her heart pumping again after jumping into that ice water.”
Popster was Kevin’s female Hungarian Vizla, a short-haired, thin-skinned retriever that looked more like an orange, bobtailed greyhound than a duck dog. But unlike Coco, Popster was a retrieving machine, seemingly propelled by rockets with endless fuel.
However on this day, her thin coat would be no match for the 40-degree late January water temperature. Pud routinely used an insulated dog vest to help keep her warm on cold days, but when hunting thick buttonwoods and brushy areas like the greentree, you don’t want anything on a retriever that might hang up and potentially cause the dog to drown — not even a collar.
“Listen!”
The brotherly dog debate was silenced by the Cajun, who was now slowly hunkering down to a sitting position under the blind cover. “I don’t see ’em, but I hear ’em.”
Pud and I followed suit while looking skyward for the source of the jet-engine-like roar.
“There! 10 o’clock!” Pud pointed. “Looks like about a dozen navy birds.”
They were all sailing, locked up in unison dropping out of the heavens, like a squadron of Jap dive-bombers at Pearl Harbor
But they were seemingly headed for the other side of the greentree.
“Give them a shout,” I prompted Pud.
While I always liked to think I could out-call Pud, I never believed for one second that I could match the ear-piercing volume of his long-distance highball call.
Pud started into his full-power eight-note highball as the Cajun and I shielded our ears. The flock was slowly disappearing behind the tall cypress tree across the hole.
About two-thirds of the way through, his note took a sharp turn from a loud quack to a high-pitched squeal. Pud pulled the call from his lips for an instant, spit and then immediately picked-up where he had left off.
I looked over toward the Cajun huddled in the shadows under the blind cover, and we both exchanged smiles, neither of us ever understanding how anyone could blow a duck call that loud with that much Skoal in their mouth.
After several more series of greeting calls with no sign of the flock, we all stood back up, sighed a deep breath, and resumed scanning the horizons through the trees in search of the flock.
“Keep your eyes peeled,” Pud said, “if we see ’em again, they’ll probably be tree toppers.”
Pud had barely gotten “toppers” out of his mouth when the unmistakable sound of chuckling mallards hit us. I turned my head to see a wave of low-flying silhouettes through the trees rapidly approaching the hole from due south behind us, and motioned for Pud and the Cajun to ease down.
As the first birds flew over the edge of the hole and got a glimpse of our decoy spread swimming and basking in the sunlight, they slowed their wingbeat, banked to the left to follow the edge of the hole out in front of us, and then turned back south. The remainder of the flock followed and was now numbering 30 or more birds by my quick estimation.
“Don’t even call,” Pud muttered.
The birds’ body language indicated they liked what they saw, and their slow speed and wingbeat said they were very interested — and hopefully heading back south to make a final approach into the north wind to land in our hole.
“Either this is a different flock, or they’ve picked up some friends along the way,” Pud said.
I strained to turn around while squatting, and peeped my eyes over the left side of the camo blind cover. I was determined to keep my eyes glued on the flock through the timber as they circled back to the South. Many a flock has gone to make what appeared to be a final circle and approach to land, only to never be seen again.
Pud and the Cajun were sitting nervously under the blind canopy, now holding their guns standing upright in front of them, their eyes locked on my eyes and body language. Cajun was fumbling through his coat pockets with one hand trying to follow Pud’s lead in setting a few extra shells on the floor beside him.
“Here they come back,” I whispered. “They’re real low and might drop in this pass. Wait for my call, and remember to shoot only greenheads on your side.”
Our modified set-up was about to get the true test. The sun was at our back. The boat blind was completely within the tree shadows, its outline masked by low buttonwoods in front and tall trees behind.
The boat was solidly secured front and back by ropes tied to two large hackberry trees. The wind was in our face. The swimming, sun-lit decoys filled the far side of the hole, leaving the only slick-water landing zone right in front of the blind. And our calls were hanging loose around our necks — not a good time to chance a “Skoal note.”
As the first birds neared the hole, I eased back under the canopy to watch out front. We all made momentary eye contact and exchanged smiles of nervous anticipation. Before we could see any birds, a whir of pinions sounded as the first birds hit the brakes overhead and appeared over the right side of the blind, dipping and cupping the air with their lowered left wings while turning to start the descent down into the hole — feet first — from right to left across the front of the blind.
The initial group of five were joined by another 15 or 20 on top of them repeating the same maneuver, and then another dozen or so behind them. In a matter of a few seconds, it was raining descending and hovering mallards, and all of them were coming down in the bright morning sunshine between the blind and the decoys — 10 to 30 yards in front of us.
“Where’s the camera?” Pud queried while keeping his eyes glued on the decoying birds.
Cajun and I both knew that at that moment it would take more than a crowbar to pry Pud’s clenched fingers off his Remington 870.
We all peered over the front camo netting of the blind, waiting for that magical moment — that moment when there was a maximum number of birds in gun range, and the shot would be called. We had made the effort to right our wrong, and now it was about time to cash in.
As the feet of the first few birds actually hit the water, and the next wave of 15 or so were hovering about 4 feet above them, the words instinctively barked from Pud’s mouth: “TAKE ’EM!”
The three of us rose in unison and shouldered our guns, pulling the triggers on our 870s as fast as we could pump the shells through them.
Initially, all that was necessary was to point and shoot at the nearly stationary, slow-motion targets. But with each passing milli-second, the birds were reacting and speeding up their movements exponentially, frantically looking for an escape route from the small opening in the tall hardwoods.
Most of the birds were back-peddling straight up and away, with a few exiting through the woods trying to gain altitude as they dodged tree trunks. I could see other birds folding in my peripheral vision as I dropped my initial target.
In a span of three or four seconds, we had all emptied our guns, and were reaching down to the floor grabbing additional shells and slamming them into our open chambers, while trying to keep our eyes fixed on the ducks still in range trying to escape the melee.
I was focused on one greenhead climbing straight up over the blind with the wind, but before I could raise my gun, the Cajun had folded him and he was nose-diving straight down — headed right for my end of the boat.
I continued to watch him for a second or two to make sure he wasn’t going to score a direct hit, and then shifted my attention to a second greenhead flying about 15 feet off the water and headed into the woods on my left. I hit him just as he was about to pass behind a large cypress trunk, but he went down with his head up and hit the water swimming.
I slammed another loose shell off the floor into my chamber, and took a bead ahead of the swimming duck, this time rolling him with a solid pattern as he swam into my line of fire between the tree trunks.
I looked back to the front of the boat, and Pud was leveling off on a greenhead swimming toward the decoys at about 35 yards. Four shots later, he and the Cajun finally rolled him.
“See any other swimmers?” I asked in a cracking voice, my pulse still pounding from the 15-second adrenaline rush.
“No, I think they’re all down,” Pud responded. “How many did you get, Marty? I’ve got three down!”
“I’ve got two,” I responded.
“Cajun!” Pud barked like a drill sergeant. “Did you shoot that first duck on the water? I swear I saw — outta the corner of my eye — a greenhead with his feet already touchin’ the water take a full shot pattern on that first round!”
“His feet were not touching the water!” the Cajun countered emphatically. “I did not shoot that duck on the water — only his toenails were touching,” he said with a wily smile and squinting eyes. “I’ve got two birds down, but I think one may be a Susie-Q.”
“SUSIE-Q?” Pud and I blurted simultaneously in a tone of utter disgust, while giving the Cajun our sourest looks possible.
“Having trouble with your greens and browns this morning Caj?” Pud chided.
Our sour looks turned to grins, not wanting to let one small instance of imperfection ruin our moment of glory.
We had put seven mallards on the water in less than a minute’s worth of shooting. Not bad considering we only had two wood ducks and one greenhead to show for the previous three-plus hours of hunting.
I was standing and digging in my coat pockets for more shells when something caught my eye from below. The camo netting was bulging and pulsing out with a brown outstretched paw extending from underneath to within inches of the greenhead floating next to the boat. This was the bird the Cajun had dropped a few minutes earlier that had nearly made a Kamikaze hit on me.
Coco, with the dexterity of a raccoon, was trying to pull the bird to the boat — without having to get wet!
“Check this out,” I said to Cajun and Pud while pointing down to the squatting dog with her nose in the netting and front right leg outstretched, pawing at the floating duck.
I lifted the net and launched her from the front boat platform with a swift push from my boot.
“She gets an ‘A’ for effort, but an ‘F’ for execution,” I proclaimed. “Sound familiar?”
The LDWF has done an outstanding job building and managing the greentree reservoir on Red River WMA for public waterfowl hunting. A concrete water-control structure with an overflow weir was built to stabilize water levels, along with a well and pump to flood the area and maintain water levels during dry periods.
Tall willow timber was cut out of the central portion of the swamp several years ago to open the canopy and stimulate growth of waterfowl forage plants like duckweed and semi-aquatic plants.
A concrete access ramp and gravel parking lot have also been constructed on the south end of the greentree to increase public access. These additions have really improved both the quality and consistency of the duck hunting on the greentree reservoir.
Another development over the last decade that has had a positive impact on waterfowl hunting in the area is the establishment of three nearby national wildlife refuges, which hold large concentrations of ducks and geese in the area every winter.
Lake Ophelia NWR is about 10 miles to the west, Bayou Cocodrie NWR about 10 miles to the north, and St. Catherine Creek NWR about 10 miles to the east.
Access to Red River WMA is via Highway 15 on the east, Highway 910 on the south, and the Red River levee gravel road on the west. The greentree can be hunted via boat with outboard motor (when water levels are high) or Go-Devil (when water levels are low and many areas are covered with aquatic vegetation).
Hunters can also access the shallow, peripheral areas by using ATVs on the adjacent LDWF-approved trails and then walking in.
Also noteworthy is the multitude of lakes on this WMA, most of which are surrounded by huge, majestic cypress trees and offer excellent public duck-hunting opportunities. Access to these areas is via ATVs on approved LDWF trails.
Maps of Red River WMA are available from your local LDWF office or via their website. You can also go to www.terraserver.com on the Internet, and pull up the aerial photo taken of Shaw, La., on Jan 10, 1998, for additional photographic detail.
The greentree reservoir is about 4 miles northwest of the intersection of Highways 15 and 910 on the aerial photo, and appears as an oval-shaped area of darker vegetation with a multitude of small openings or ponds within it.
