2023-2024 preseason...

[DComeaux]

I had seen this picture and video a few times floating around overtime and thought I'd share it.

Hard to imagine my grandfather (Lutcher Stark) actually shot all of these on one day in the 1920s in Louisiana's Cameron Parish -- considered the best place in North America to hunt back then, surpassing even Canada. He and his first wife (Nita Hill Stark) purchased 160,000 acres and converted it to the Orange Cameron Land Company for use as a hunting club, using dynamite to build more than 100 miles of canals on the property.
Judging from the picture, I'm guessing there were no limits in that era. Even though they were shared with other families, it's hard to imagine so many shot by one man. Maybe he had help from other hunters? Photo courtesy Homer Stark family.

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1929 Cameron Parish Louisiana
Ducks as thick as Mosquitoes; Riverboat; poling for alligators.........Orange Cameron Land Company. Filmed by my Grandfather, H J Lutcher Stark.
https://www.facebook.com/1086194216/videos/10207037236544448/

[Rick]

Hard to imagine my grandfather (Lutcher Stark) actually shot all of these on one day in the 1920s in Louisiana's Cameron Parish -- considered the best place in North America to hunt back then, surpassing even Canada.

When I moved here in the mid '80s, Cameron Parish was still frequently touted as killing more ducks than the entire Atlantic Flyway. (And our camp is a mile and a half down the road from the Klondike Volunteer Fire Station then said to be "the statistical center of the greatest concentration of wintering white-fronted geese on the continent". And neither was the least bit hard to believe.

Feel incredibly blessed to have enjoyed that bounty as long as I did.

Still can't do much of anything during the months when the birds used to be omnipresent on our landscape without keen awareness that our skies, waters and fields are now mostly barren and feeling hollowed by it. Don't remember pecans about reading Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring back in high school (except its author's name) but that title comes to mind time and again each winter.

[Rick]

Re: poling alligators, I've two old marsh men friends who've spoken of jerking them from their dens that way during times of drought but somehow never envisioned splitting their wigs with an ax.

[Rick]

That’s encouraging to hear Rick. Any movement on the hunting operation yet?

Sorry I let that get away from me for a while, but didn't speak with someone in that loop until last evening. It seems our marsh's executor is now stalling, which is giving the lawyer (who's been known to undercut his buddy, Doug, on other property) excuse to stall on the other deal we'll need for access. So we're no further along than we were. Which may not be a bad thing if the drought doesn't break.

And, to be candid, I'm too fried from egg picking mud, blood and airboat battles to feel like wading into another fray before finishing this one.

[Deltaman]

Awesome pic and old film Dave, and Thank You for sharing
The gator walloping was incredible, and definitely not for the feint of heart

Rick,
Hoping the stars line up for you and your marsh this year, and quells the uncertainty soon. I only hunted one time last year, and really appreciate you sharing your duck seasons with all of us.

[Rick]

Dave - Any idea who the above land went to?

Deltaman - Today could mark the end of our egg season, or near enough so that I hope to see if I can get our marsh deal moving one way or another soon - not that we're seeing any real improvement on the water situation. "Just don't know" sucks.

[DComeaux]

Dave - Any idea who the above land went to?

I don't, and I found that it was dissolved in 1948. I would imagine there were many hands grabbing for it.

[DComeaux]

Dave - Any idea who the above land went to?

I don't, and I found that it was dissolved in 1948. I would imagine there were many hands grabbing for it.

I just realized I pulled an Ericdc and posted on someone else's log. I honestly thought I had put that in my preseason section.

[Ericdc]

Rick and I share 3 of the same 4 letters in our first name, and in same order, so we'll blame it on that..


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[DComeaux]

Rick and I share 3 of the same 4 letters in our first name, and in same order, so we'll blame it on that..


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LOL!

Dave - Any idea who the above land went to?

I don't, and I found that it was dissolved in 1948. I would imagine there were many hands grabbing for it.

I found this map and would think Marsh bear may be hunting on or near some of that property today.

download.png

[Rick]

I asked because a big dog with Apache Oil once told me they were major land owners in SWLA, and I'd since guessed their stuff must be in that neighborhood. Looks, on that map, like the Feds must have ended up with much of the Orange-Cameron Land Co. stuff.

Marsh Bear would, I'd also think, be our regional authority there.

[Deltaman]

WOW, what a huge parcel of game rich land to own And we can only wonder what the trout fishing might have been like on Calcasieu back then, considering how many giants have been caught in the past 25-30 years there.

[Rick]

And we can only wonder what the trout fishing might have been like on Calcasieu back then, considering how many giants have been caught in the past 25-30 years there.

Capt. Rick in me is thinking, sows or schoolies, it would have been wonderful to be able to stop the boat to take a leak without 52 others thinking you're on fish and crowding around.

[Deltaman]

And we can only wonder what the trout fishing might have been like on Calcasieu back then, considering how many giants have been caught in the past 25-30 years there.

Capt. Rick in me is thinking, sows or schoolies, it would have been wonderful to be able to stop the boat to take a leak without 52 others thinking you're on fish and crowding around.

Dang, if that during your early days in LA (think you mentioned getting there in the 80?), couldn't imagine what it is like now

[Rick]

I got here in '83 and chartered in the '90s. Early in the season most of the lake can be fresh and trout only available by near the ship channel or old river at the lake's bottom, and one such year I drifted a MS party along a huge break on the channel's edge with just three boats in sight until we hit fish and anchored. Had just boxed our 18th trout when my party's host suggested we try another spot.

Told him it was foolish to leave fish with so little trout water in the estuary, but he insisted, and off we went to where the old river was putting some salt in the lake. Once there, he was unzipping to take a leak before the boat slowed, and I when I kidded him about that being the real reason for the move, he said "Just couldn't do it with all those boats looking on." Don't recall the exact number, but he'd counted forty-some.

No way I'd fish it now until after most everyone has gone home for the day.

[Rick]

Just did a status check on the marsh and camp. Still no movement...

[Deltaman]

Know the anxiety is thick, and praying things work out for you in your marsh!

As far as having to piss in a close crowd of boats, I've mastered the art of pissing while seated, into a bailing scoop sliding that snake out of the leg of my shorts, works like a champ!!!!!!

[Rick]

Kept a 5gal bucket under the center console.

[Lreynolds]

I had seen this picture and video a few times floating around overtime and thought I'd share it.

Hard to imagine my grandfather (Lutcher Stark) actually shot all of these on one day in the 1920s in Louisiana's Cameron Parish -- considered the best place in North America to hunt back then, surpassing even Canada .....

Judging from the picture, I'm guessing there were no limits in that era. Even though they were shared with other families, it's hard to imagine so many shot by one man. Maybe he had help from other hunters? Photo courtesy Homer Stark family.

In case anyone is interested, from 1918 to 1929, Louisiana had 107 consecutive days of duck season between Sept. 16 and Jan. 31 (I don't have exact dates) with a daily bag limit of 25 ducks.

[Rick]

I can't look at any of the old duck hunting photos without wondering who the heck wants to clean all that? Different, hungrier times, I know - but still...

[Darren]

Thanks for that tidbit Larry !

[MARSH BEAR]

Rick - our club leases our hunting property from Apache Corp - our lease area is east of Mud Lake, included in some of the black shaded area on the map.

[DComeaux]

Rick - our club leases our hunting property from Apache Corp - our lease area is east of Mud Lake, included in some of the black shaded area on the map.

I hunted in the sliver of marsh between south mud lake and holy beach for a few years in the early to mid 80's. It was a wonderful time.

[MARSH BEAR]

DC - I never hunted that area, but know of some that did up until about 4 years ago - they claimed to limit every day they hunted

[Rick]

Only time I ever hunted that general area was on a writers' junket with (then) Tom Bagget's Cameron Wildlife my first year down here and I was lost as the proverbial goose. I was the youngest in the group, and Tom asked if I'd mind hunting with the then local TV celebrity, Cajun Phil Broussard's, son Kevin. Had no idea why not - until I found myself whipping past barely visible PVC pipes marking the boat rut through shallows at full throttle in pitch darkness.

[DComeaux]

Only time I ever hunted that general area was on a writers' junket with (then) Tom Bagget's Cameron Wildlife my first year down here and I was lost as the proverbial goose. I was the youngest in the group, and Tom asked if I'd mind hunting with the then local TV celebrity, Cajun Phil Broussard's, son Kevin. Had no idea why not - until I found myself whipping past barely visible PVC pipes marking the boat rut through shallows at full throttle in pitch darkness.

Cajun Phil. I haven't heard that name in a long time.

[5 stand]

Only time... I understand why...

[Rick]

Only time... I understand why...

The hunt itself got even more interesting from this displaced hillbilly's perspective when a gunfight, allegedly, broke out between young guide and young alligator vying for procession a downed blue-wing. But no one could accuse the boy of slacking in his approach to the job.

Tom Bagget, our host, was a mighty nice fellow who also had a dental practice and wife in Lake Charles, the later of which suggested that if he wanted to keep she and what would become her share of that practice, he'd best sell the guide service. So Cameron Wildlife was sold to Sammy Faulk, who chartered and ran Hebert's Landing, and Lake Charles taxidermist, Steve German, after which I lost track of it.

(Memory fails me on whether that marsh adventure was my first or second SWLA September teal hunt, but the other of that pair was a flooded ag land venture southwest of Gueydan as the guest of a member of the now long defunct American Sportsman Club. That outing was much like big dove shoots I'd attended elsewhere, with gosh knows how many parties surrounding the field - major difference being the fact that so many of those souls were targeting protected big ducks. And when I asked my host what the hell they thought they were shooting at, I was told "pinteal, motteal and wood teal". Saw more, mostly attempted, outlawing that morning than in my life previously. Welcome to Louisiana in the '80s.)

[Duck Engr]

Rick, have you ever considered writing a book about the history of SWLA duck hunting?

[Rick]

Rick, have you ever considered writing a book about the history of SWLA duck hunting?

Nope, never looked very far beyond the tiny piece I lived, much less made a study of it.

Long expected the fellow on the right in this picture (next to one of our area's late legends, "B" Duplantis) to do so, as Barry comes as close to an area waterfowling historian as anyone I've met and at least used to collect stories, calls, decoys and such from its past.

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