ESPN Hunting

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Duck hunting is all about sharing.

That is a true statement, even for the most selfish of those who don camouflage from October to January and slog around in the muck trying to find something to appeal to a mass of feathers the size of a football.

That's why ESPN Outdoors is setting out on the greatest sharing trek of all time, or at least in the last two years. For the next month, we will be traveling the Mississippi Flyway from Minnesota to Louisiana, following the migration of waterfowl — and sharing the experience every step of the way.

As duck hunters, we know all of us share in the grit of the season. We share the mud and crud that seems to seep into things that don't have a nook or cranny. They share in the knowledge of a cold front, how it can change their world and how to whisper the words barometric pressure and jet stream in the same sentence.

They share the awe of a glorious sunrise and the shining of green heads glistening in the light against a blue sky. They revel in the smell of a wet retriever. They share in the joy of whistling wings and the misery of floating a hat after a stumble in a cold marsh or flooded timber.

And most of all, they share in the ducks. The migration makes that a certainty. We're all important to each other.

What we don't share is where we hunt and how we do it. Those things change from county to county, and most certainly from state to state, which is the best reason for what we are calling the ESPN Outdoors Duck Trek.

There are too many great places and great hunting stories to explore and share about a segment of the hunting community that, through the course of the last century, has built a serious bond.

Sharing in the fight

A battle broke out in Arkansas during the 1970s. It was an environmental skirmish pitting the federal government and Delta farming interests vs. Arkansas duck hunters. If it had stayed that localized, there's no doubt who would have won.

But this battle would escalate into a war that included all 13 states in the Mississippi Flyway. As duck hunters and environmentalists realized what was at stake — the channelization by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers of the best wintering mallard habitat in the world, 232 miles of the Cache River and Bayou DeView in Arkansas — they joined in the fight.

First Minnesota pledged its assistance, followed by Iowa, Illinois, Ohio, Kentucky, Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota and Louisiana. The rest would follow.

And, finally, in a landmark environmental law case, the duck hunters won. The Cache River National Wildlife Refuge and its adjoining White River National Wildlife Refuge are now recognized as "wetlands of international importance" by the Ramsar Convention, an international treaty signed by 49 countries that provides the framework for protection of the world's most significant wetlands.

If not for the migratory nature of waterfowl, this would have remained nothing more than a regional skirmish. And, as previously mentioned, we all know the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers wins those.

Led by one man, the late Rex Hancock, a dentist from Stuttgart, Ark., a band of duck hunting brothers formed to save the most important North American wintering habitat for mallard ducks. Thirteen states carry a lot more weight than one. All you have to do is look at the results of Arkansas' Cache River battle to realize that.

And, at the same time, that battle illustrates the ties that bind all duck hunters — whether it's those in the Mississippi Flyway, the Pacific, the Central or the Eastern. They all understand the migratory nature of waterfowl.

No matter how good the breeding conditions are in the north, if the wintering habitat continually degrades in the long annual flight south, fewer and fewer ducks will return to breed. You can't separate the parts from the whole.

Maybe duck hunters realize this better than any other type of outdoorsmen. It's with that in mind that ESPNOutdoors.com has set about on a "Duck Trek" of the Mississippi Flyway.

Our Trek

Let's be clear — this Duck Trek isn't about battles, unless you include the ones with sleep and bloodshot eyes.

Our intention is simple: Follow the ducks, follow the fronts and follow the migratory path of waterfowl from the upper end of the Mississippi Flyway to its lower end.

Along the way, we will walk some of the hallowed ground of the flyway, relaying the look and feel from places most duck hunters have never seen.

This area houses more waterfowlers than any other region of the country. For most of them, this is a dream trip almost all want to take. Few will ever do it in a lifetime, let alone a season. This Trek, and the accompanying countless stories and hundreds of photographs, will be as close to that trip as most will ever get.

As we go along we will share in all the things duck hunters love to share, including all its joy and misery. Along that line our mantra will be the well-worn words of Robert Ruark:

You ain't happy unless your hurtin', and somewhere in the hurt, you cleanse yourself of a lot of civilized nonsense that spreads a thick veneer on the hides of people ... You scrape it off, you sweat it off, and you walk it off. Your head gets clearer, your senses sharper, and when you do come back — blistered, thirsty, too tired to be hungry, too weary to wash — some of the nonsense of today has been washed away. Some beauty has been observed, some hardships overcome, some sympathies established, and there is a wondrous satisfaction in honest fatigue.

That's the essence of the Duck Trek.

By the end of it, we will stand in Venice, La., in the middle of our decoys, looking through raw, bloodshot eyes toward where it started in Minnesota — and hurt even more because it will be over.