ESPN Hunting

My mind is a trash basket. All my life, I've enjoyed prowling the back alleys of knowledge in search of trivial bits of information others might discard as worthless.

Robert Ripley caused my affliction.

When I was a kid, I couldn't wait to get one of his "Believe It or Not!" books, from which I could learn amazing things like how "the tail of the porcupine was used by the Crow Indians as a comb" and how a hen in the Marianas "sat on a live hand grenade for 26 days."

Later I started saving scraps of trivia torn from the pages of newspapers and magazines. I transferred this collection to a "Weird Stuff" card file and, more recently, much of it found its way into my computer. No limit was set on subject matter, but strong favorites emerged, including hunting trivia.

So it is, you get to enjoy the following compendium of stimulating information, queer coincidences and strange stories about the world of waterfowling.

I've spent years collecting all these amazing facts and hope this avalanche of the irrelevant will surprise, bewilder, intrigue and entertain you as much as it has me.

A hunter who quacked us up

Stuttgart, Ark., hosted the first World's Championship Duck Calling Contest in 1936. The winner was Thomas E. Walsh of Greenville, Miss., who used his voice, rather than a duck call, to imitate the sounds of a mallard hen.

It's raining ducks!

Workmen in Arkansas were preparing a mobile home for transport near Hot Springs in the fall of 2000 when a thunderstorm blew up. They all felt a mild shock when a lightning bolt lit the sky and, seconds later, ducks began raining down all around them.

The flock of 20 birds was struck in mid-air, a rare event.

Before Labs

The retrieving dog of choice for nineteenth-century European waterfowl hunters wasn't the Labrador, but the French poodle. "In Germany and France the market hunters use them extensively for retrieving," H.H. Hunnewell Jr. wrote in 1894. "They have good noses, take to water readily, and are strong runners and beautiful jumpers."

Monstrous mallard

To see the world's biggest mallard, travel to Andrew, Alberta. This gigantic duck has a wingspan of 23 feet and weighs 2,000 pounds. It was built to pay tribute to a major Canadian resting area for ducks and geese on nearby Whitford Lake.

Wide world of ducks

On Dec. 23, 1956, 4 million viewers of NBC's "Wide Wide World," hosted by Dave Garroway, watched one of the most amazing shows ever on live television. An estimated 300,000 mallards were sitting on Claypool Reservoir in northeast Arkansas when the broadcast started at 3:14 p.m. A rocket holding three blocks of TNT was fired over the ducks and exploded in midair. Then there was another explosion as the ducks flushed.

Wallace Claypool, owner of the reservoir, then called in ducks for 12-year-old Lynn Parsons to shoot with his new shotgun. Garroway closed the 7½-minute segment by saying, "Now if you will brush the duck feathers off your sofa, we'll go on with the rest of the program."

Pricey decoys

On Jan. 23, 2000, bidders flocked to Sotheby's in New York City to compete at the auction of the finest private collection of American waterfowl decoys in the world. Hundreds of collectors witnessed the sale of the distinguished collection of Dr. James McCleery, which became the world's highest-grossing auction of decoys, with a staggering total of $10,965,935.

The two-day event also set a world record for the most-expensive decoy ever sold at auction, when a sleeping Canada goose by renowned carver Elmer Crowell, circa 1917, went for $684,500. Meanwhile, a wood-duck drake by the Mason Decoy Factory fetched $354,500.

Sievers' folly

In 1897, Nebraskan John Sievers Jr. was issued a patent for a hunting decoy — a full-sized cow. The patent specifications indicated that the decoy was to be of a flexible shell of hide, canvas or similar material and be painted like a cow. A system of braces held the hollow body upright and was supported by two hunters inside the cow, one fore and one aft. The decoy's legs held the legs of the men.

The idea was to walk the decoy near waterfowl. Then at the right time, the hinged neck portion dropped down to enable the forward man to "discharge his fowling piece." The rear man shot from a side window. The specifications did not mention precautions to be taken by hunters in the presence of a bull.

Duck guns or cannons?

Some of the most awesome firearms ever used by hunters were the punt guns used by market hunters to kill waterfowl. As long as 10 feet and weighing 150 pounds or more, the punt gun was laid upon the bow of a boat, never shouldered. It fired 1½ to 2 pounds of shot, using a quarter pound of black powder. The resulting blast might kill more than 100 ducks and send the boat back 10 yards.

Champion of champions

Only one person has won all five major competitions held at Stuttgart's World's Championship Duck Calling Contest. In 1950, at age 12, that lady, Pat Peacock, won the Junior World title. In 1951, she took the first of five straight Women's World Titles.

In 1955, Peacock won the Arkansas title and the first of two straight World's Championships.

And in 1960, she capped her duck-calling career with the Champion of Champions crown. (In 1956, Peacock also won the first ever Queen Mallard beauty contest!)

Long-distance traveler

How far will a migrating duck fly? Here's one example.

A pintail banded in September 1940 in Athabasca County, Alberta, eluded hazards until January 1954, when it was shot near Naucuspana in Tabasco, Mexico.

Considering the 3,000 miles between band site and death, and assuming the bird made the two-way migration each year for 13 years, the pintail would have logged nearly 80,000 migration miles during its lifetime.

For whom the dog tolls

Dogs called "tollers" once were used to lure ducks into shooting range. For some unexplained reason, ducks feeding offshore would approach a dog as it bounced playfully back and forth on shore. Hunters hidden in a blind would throw a ball or stick for the dog to retrieve, and this would go on until the waterfowl swam close enough for the hunters to shoot. The Nova Scotia duck-tolling retriever is a breed developed for this use.

Diving titlist

When it comes to diving, no other waterfowl can hold a candle to the long-tailed duck, or oldsquaw, which is known to dive as deep as 200 feet.

The one & only state duck

In 1974, the wood duck was designated the state waterfowl of Mississippi. No other state has chosen a duck as its official state bird.

Against all odds

Dr. Stan Chace of Alturas, Calif., seemingly defied all odds way back in the fall of 1962. Chace bagged a banded Canada goose in October, then shot another banded Canada in December. When he compared the bands, Chace found them to be consecutively numbered — the first 518-31661 and the second 518-31662. The birds were banded three years earlier at nearby Goose Lake.

Legal briefs

Rogers, Ark., attorney Ben Lipscomb went duck hunting in January 2005 and got lost in flooded backwoods. The Arkansas State Police sent out a helicopter to search for him. Lipscomb saw his would-be rescuers fly over. Although he tried to attract their attention, his waving was ineffective.

Covered head-to-toe in camouflage clothing, Lipscomb was equally invisible to ducks and aerial searchers. Clearly, the desirability of blending into the scenery needed rethinking.

Soon after this thought occurred to the lost man, the crew of the helicopter saw something white fluttering in the woods. Lipscomb was rescued after he swallowed his pride, removed his white underwear, tied the briefs to his shotgun barrel and waved them at the pilots.

To contact Keith Sutton, email him at catfishdude@sbcglobal.net. His new book, "Out There Fishing" (Stoeger Publishing; $19.95), is available at www.catfishsutton.com.