First duck hunt 2016

First duck hunt 2016

It’s been said that the two best days of duck season are the first day and the last day of the season. As soon as the season is over we start thinking about “next year” and what a great season it will be. My hunting crew is made of dedicated and die hard duck hunters and our first hunt is at Chandlerville, Illinois, that is about a six hour drive from home.

The club is called Cherry Circle and nobody knows how the name was derived, except it was started back in the 1920s by some gangsters and other hunters out of Chicago. It is composed of 400 acres of some of the best duck hunting lands in Illinois with a very nice club house that has a massive fireplace that burns every night. It’s the kids’ job to bring in the fire wood and make sure the fire stays stoked as the veteran hunters relax and tell stories of the past. These tales improve over the years! A hunting camp needs a fireplace!

My old time friend Joe Hurwitz and his family are the primary owners of the club.

We meet around noon at the County Line Tavern, which is the center of culture for local hunters. The county Line is not a honky tonk and has great food. We met with Joe Hurwitz, his sons and his daddy Ralph. Ralphie is quite the hunter, celebrating his 91st birthday by killing his limit and probably some other folk’s birds too. He is still a world class shooter. Joe and I go back 30 plus years dating back to when I was training his retriever the late 1970s. We have had many great hunts at his place and with him coming to Arkansas to hunt with us at the 101 Club near Snow Lake.

Our boys have grown up hunting together and it’s about time for the grandbabies to keep the tradition going. The Arkansas bunch is composed of my son Dr.

Keith Criner, Dr. J.W.

Catt, Tony Anderson, Don Brawley, and his grandson Attorney Tyler Ginn.

This is the 28th trip for Dr. Keith and the 15th for Tyler, Don, and Tony. This has been the basic group of hunters with an occasional different hunter when one of the regulars can’t make the trip.

Friday afternoon about 2 p.m. found us in a large comfy blind called Pintail Point and hunting over open water. Cherry Circle’s 400 acres is split into the open lake and the marsh. The marsh is full of natural duck food and the water is shallow requiring the use of a Go-Devil motor on a large flat bottom boat to get to the blinds. The ducks love it!

Unfortunately their weather is very similar to ours with highs in the low 70s and lows in the 40s. They have not even had a frost and they are 400 miles north of us. We did not fire a shot. We always bring Bar-B-Q and the evening was spent eating and telling stories. They love our Bar-B-Q. They don’t know how to do it right.

Saturday morning was clear and we hit the marsh in full gear heading to the three blinds we used. For about 30 minutes it was slow with a shot ever so often. Then the ducks got serious and fell into the decoys to be greeted with 3 inch steel shot, We hunted to about 10:00am and we almost got our limit, ending up with 41 ducks.

It was a nice morning of hunting with friends.The rest of the day was spent on a monster breakfast and naps while watching football on TV. The evening was a great fish fry, they do know how to put on a great fish fry, and a recycle of the day’s hunt and hunts of days gone by. Sunday morning came much too early and we split into different groups from yesterday to hunt the same three blinds. They only hunt the marsh on Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday. It was not very good and we totaled out with 14 ducks for the morning. It was back at camp for a big going away lunch.

We packed and loaded up about noon and after many handshakes and hugs, we hit the road for Crittenden County. It was a long drive home and I did get some nap time in.

Dr. Keith did the driving and it took a few pit stops to get home.

On a negative note, if the ducks had not arrived at Cherry Circle, Arkansas hunters will probably not have a good flock for opening week-end which is only two weeks away.

Deer season opens this weekend and remember, you CAN NOT take a freshly killed deer into Tennessee unless it has been deboned and the skull cleaned with no meat or tissues remaining.

Dino’s is open at Marion.

That is the closest processing place. Get those trophies mounted at LAKESIDE TAXIDERMY. We are good, fast, and reasonably priced.

This is a wonderful time of year and take that young hunter with you. It is a great time to be together and you will have stories to tell in later years. Send me pictures and tell me about your hunts.

Papa Duck Lakeside Taxidermy 870-732-0455 or 901-482-3430 jhcriner@hotmail.com

By John Criner Outdoors Columnist