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What could be more romantic than a Louisiana duck hunt?

Date published: 2/7/2003

HACKBERRY, La.--Most hunters and anglers, espe- cially those who write about the outdoors, are incurable romantics. Life is a celebration, filled with a quest for experiences both symbolic and enduring.

So it was that I returned with my wife, Maria, to the land of her birth, to the bountiful waters and live oak forests of her native Louisiana for our wedding anniversary. I treated her to a couple of dreamy, early January days in a Hackberry duck blind.

Nothing says "I love you" quite like jointly firing shot patterns at a group of gadwall and watching hard-working Labrador retrievers earn their chow. Unfortunately, the rain and sleet didn't come until the day after the actual anniversary date, but it was pleasant nevertheless.

We had discussed going to Venice, Italy, for the anniversary, but I assured her this would be almost like it, only better! Louisiana marsh canals, to the creative mind, are reminiscent of the canals of Venice--only without the old buildings, laundry hanging out of apartment windows, and hordes of people. I was tempted to ask our guide if he could croon, or even hum, a couple Italian love songs while we polled the pirogue through the mud flats. You never know--these duck guides are versatile chaps.

Black Lake Lodge is duck central in southwestern Louisiana. Manager Ronny Doucett sounded almost apologetic when he pulled me aside and whispered they'd only taken 5,000 ducks this year off the 8,000 acres of marsh he manages. More than 3,700 had come during the "first split," as Louisiana calls the first part of its two-part season.

"It's been slow during the second split, but some blinds have been doing really well," he said.

Doucett's freshwater north marsh was lush with grass and held thousands of ringneck ducks that no amount of shooting could drive away. Elsewhere, ducks were flying, but they were educated, late-season birds. The main exceptions were pintails, which were protected from shooting during the second split and routinely decoyed, of course, over the blind.

Our first morning saw the weather turn dramatically. A northwest wind howled. In the first minutes of legal shooting, a single widgeon circled right, flying erratically, battling the wind. I shot and missed. Strong wind is notorious for blowing a pattern of steel shot. (That's my excuse, anyway.)

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Date published: 2/7/2003