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CAPT. DANNY DUET was but a youngster, maneuvering his pirogue boat through the marshes near Golden Meadow, La., when the shadowy figure beckoned him over to a patch of dry ground. The man spoke two phrases--riddles of a sort--then vanished.
Duet (pronounced Doo-way) had encountered the legendary "Marsh Man." Those of us around the table had just feasted on crawfish, shrimp, oysters, huge blue crabs and more, but goosebumps formed as we listened to Duet tell his story.
I wanted to interject, "Time out, skipper; you mean we're hunting in a haunted marsh?" but sensed it wouldn't be the macho thing to do. So I quietly resolved to sleep with one eye open and hope that severe snoring spooked spooks.
Duck hunting in 8,000 acres of some of the finest marshland south of New Orleans, superb fishing, that famous Louisiana food, and now some Cajun storytelling--man, laissez les bon temps roulez (let the good times roll).
The Marsh Man's messages were a mystery until years later, when Duet was in the Army's 101st Airborne Division and found himself in a surreal situation in Vietnam. Sorry, but you'll have to visit the Duet's Cajun Resort to hear the rest of that story.
It takes an accomplished storyteller to rivet the attention of a camp full of outdoor writers. As a small sign on the lodge wall observes, "Hunters, anglers and other liars gather here," and we were all experienced hunters and anglers.
Others in camp included Gary Garth of Kentucky, a contributing editor for Field and Stream; John Felsher, outdoor editor of the Lake Charles (La.) American Press newspaper; Jim Zumbo, Outdoor Life magazine's longtime hunting editor and host of the Jim Zumbo Outdoors television show; Linda Powell of the Remington Arms Co.; and Karen Lutto, a public relations representative for Walkers Game Ear and Kahles, an Austrian sporting optics company. She lives in Henrico County.
A marsh outpostThe camp is currently water-based, accessible only by a 15-minute boat ride across Catfish Lake and through a maze of marsh channels. It's about 35 miles from the Gulf of Mexico as the duck flies.
A floating crew platform, originally built for the oil and gas industry, features rooms, a galley and common area. Various rafts, boathouses and more are attached, creating an elaborate outdoor complex. An expansive new lodge is under construction.
The first evening in camp, we fished under the barge's lights in shirtsleeves. Sheepshead were abundant, although we caught a few speckled trout, drum and pinfish.
The sheepshead, ranging from 2-6 pounds, were voracious and we quickly discovered that the crawfish tails we'd savored earlier were also the favored bait for the toothy, striped fish.
"They bite light, but fight with might," Felsher quipped, as we steadily yanked fish aboard, carefully releasing them from the hooks with pliers. Garth even pulled one in with a fly-fishing rig.
"I wonder how they'd taste?" Zumbo mused, prompting Felsher to dub him an honorary Cajun requiring just a slight spelling change to his last name, as in "Zumbeaux."
"They're pretty good, but hard to clean--skin is really tough," Felsher said. "The locals throw them back."
Zumbo produced a filet knife and soon reduced a dozen or so slabs suitable for the frying pan. The remains were tossed to the dozens of pelicans that hung out by the barge.
The sheepshead were delicious, with mild, white flaky flesh just accented by a little Zatarain's fish fry batter.
The first morning's hunt saw Garth and me in a blind. Everyone was shooting Remington's 11-87 semiautomatic shotguns stuffed with Remington Hevi-Shot shells in either 4 or 6 size.
Shortly after daybreak, we were treated to one of those glorious sites you see only by getting up early and slipping in to secluded, wild places. Between 200 and 300 white pelicans began flying almost directly out of the beautiful sunrise toward our blind. The single file column of birds rose and fell on the air currents. We also saw ibis, egrets, roseate spoonbills, marsh hawks, gulls, terns and many other bird species.
Garth and I lucked into the hot blind and dropped every legal duck coming into range, except for one apparently charmed creature. We finished the morning with a northern shoveler (called a spoonbill by the Louisianans), a mallard and several gadwalls, known as gray ducks in Cajun Country. Other blinds also took teal.
The difference between steel shot and Hevi-Shot can be big, in both performance and cost. Most of the birds hit with Hevi-Shot dropped like they used to during the days of lead shot, but the cost is considerably more per shotgun shell than steel.
Powell suggested for hunters worried about the cost of the ammo, to load the first shot with steel when birds are decoying well, reserving the pricier Hevi-Shot for second shots or when shooting distances are a little longer. Personally, I liked seeing birds solidly drop with that first shot.
Cold dips into the deltaTemperatures fell at least 20 degrees and winds steadily increased that afternoon as we fished for speckled trout by boat in a marsh channel, putting 20 or so keepers in the ice chest in short order.
The cold front that left the big chill here in Virginia also blasted Golden Meadow in earnest by dinnertime, with occasional periods of heavy rain. The second morning was blustery with north winds blowing a steady 15-20 miles per hour with stronger gusts. The winds helped propel water from the marsh and areas previously navigable with a mud boat powered by a Go-Devil motor were reduced to mud flats during the low tide.
Lutto and I scored a few gadwall, but were missing as many (OK--more) than we hit, apparently confounded by erratically flying birds and high winds, or, perhaps, it was the Marsh Man. Most ducks seemed to be looking for calm potholes in the marsh where they could hunker down and ride out the fearsome cold front.
The unique conditions were rendering water scarce near the blind and we needed to exit early, lest we get stranded until high tide. I asked if I could hunt a little longer in a blind near a deeper marsh channel. We threw out five decoys and I climbed into the cover.
The overcast cleared and ducks seemed to stop flying. Ten minutes before the appointed time to leave the blind and prepare for the trip back to Virginia, I glanced over my left shoulder and saw three birds winging low over the marsh grass. Spotting the dekes, they locked up their wings and banked left, circling into the wind to land.
The birds had almost splashed down when I popped up, solidly nailing a double with a hen and drake gadwall. It was a hard-won limit, and an almost perfect capper to another southern Louisiana duck hunt.
The perfect ending was seeing the pot of roasted ducks and bowls of beans and rice cooked by Capt. Danny's wife, Poppy, as soon as I walked through the door.
Call 985/475-5179 or 985/632-3267 to reach Cajun Resort. The new, land-based lodge, built from cypress, will feature private rooms and bath, a pool and a three-hole golf course. It's situated on one of the few patches of dry ground in the marsh. Zumbo's article runs next September in Outdoor Life.
KEN PERROTTE can be reached at The Free Lance-Star, 616 Amelia Street, Fredericksburg, Va. 22401, by fax at 373-8455 or e-mail at kmunicate@aol.com.