Today those wells are dry.  Hunters today want equipment/stuff articles; and most don't even read the stuff just look at the picture and glance at a caption.  So that is what we get.

Thought we could swap some of our hunting favorite short stories!

one of my favorites is  "The Road to Tinkhamtown Town" by Corey Ford.  Ford wrote "the Lower Forty" storys for F &S.

Corey ford was a long time fiction writer for Field and Stream ( in the magazines golden years). As a kid I waited to read his stories with every issue.

I have dozens of his articles. But find the best is his "The Road to Tinkhamtown". It is about a man, his dog and his life, a little sad.


Now free in line... 

http://www.fieldandstream.com/articles/hunting/2010/04/fs-classic-original-unedited-manuscript-corey-fords-road-tinkhamtown" rel="nofollow - http://www.fieldandstream.com/articl...ad-tinkhamtown

I grew up with Corey Ford and the "Lower Forty" crew. In those times the local HS actually had hunting magazines in the school library. 

This is the story of Molly a Golden Retriever and her duck hunting partner Gary one cold, dark, windy October morning on the backwaters of the Mississippi River............the story begins.............

 

A couple years back I was down on the Mississippi river backwaters for opening day of duck season here in WI & MN with my hunting partner and my dog Molly.  Across from the MN town of Wabasha, where the movie (or parts of it) "Grumpy Old Men" was filmed. 

So, come first morning we were heading out at o'dark thirty to our hunting spot.  We each had a 12ft jon boat and motor loaded with dekes plus I had Molly my golden retreiver. With me n Molly and all those dekes we had quite a load in that light weight jon boat, good thing we was using steel shot cuz that many lead shot shells mighta put us down to the gunnels & Hevi-Shot woulda swamped us sure.  

It was very windy and there were whitecaps on the water, south wind but that was good cuz we was heading north once we got out to the channel area of the backwater. But first we had to go at a slight angle to the waves to get out there.  My partner went first & me n Molly followed his light.  It is extremely weedy there and the props kept getting fouled so you had to tip the motor up and "shake" the weeds free and drop it back and keep going about every couple hundred yards.  Sounds easy right?  Well it was 'til my motor quit at one of those shake times......turns out it was flooded but more on that later.  Now there was no time to fiddle cuz that damn wind kept turning me n Molly and that little 12ft jon boat sideways to the waves...I could just envision getting swamped by those whitecaps....not a good feeling in the dark.  Mean time my partner is plodding along thinking the light he sees behind him is me n Molly coming along.....not so....it was other duck hunters heading out too. 

It was scary and I buckled up my life vest between pushing on the oars from the back seat and told Molly to lay down low and hang on.  I had to fight the waves but not too hard once I got her turned with the wind and it was pushing us in the right direction at least. Well as I was cursing my partner for not coming back to help me I kept rowing and getting madder.  He finally does come back but now it is getting near daylight but he gets there and I hook a line to his boat and he tows us to the spot.  Now we are late setting out our spread but it worked out.  We got ducks all day long.

Now what happened to that motor?  Well it was a Mercury 3.6hp pack motor.  It had only forward and was always in gear.  So to go in reverse you just turned the whole thing around 180* and that was that.  Anyway, it turns out that when you tip that motor UP the carb floods cuz the tank is built in on the top.  That's what I did was flood it by tipping it up in the forward position when I was deweeding the prop. It worked a couple times but the last time I musta had it up too long.  

It ended well as it turned out but for a bit there me n Molly thought we was gunna maybe get dunked in the dark waters of the Mississippi backwaters that dark morning. Not a good thought!

Reminds me of one of my trips hunting ducks in the swamp; no motors allowed.

Put in at 3:30 am and rowed heavy jon boat us the channel in the dark; some sheet ice with a few thick chunks.  Got about a mile in and saw shadows near by.  Two hunters in a plywood duck boat standing in chest high water holding their lab by the collar.  Seems they pushed their boat to hard and the floor delaminated.  Later they told me they had removed the floatation so to have more room for stuff!!!   No life vests!!!

towed the sunken boat and one hunter out, second trip was with #2 and mean dog.  Both guys lost their shotgun.  This was late, late season and I didn't expect anyone.  If I'd not gone in those guys would have froze to death.

Duck hunting can be dangerous.

Had a friend, duck hunting, and took an aluminum canoe and paddled out into a small lake to retrieve a dead duck that the wind was blowing away. 400 yards out, he flipped the empty canoe and the gunnel hit his head.  Unconsious, he drown.  His buddy watched from shore, helpless.

I never get into a boat without my AUTO-inflate life suspenders.  Best $120 I ever spent.  I fish and hunt in the dark often, usually alone.