RefugeRat.com

RefugeRat.com welcomes Mike Fleeman from his home state of Arkansas.

Mike hunts about 40 days per year on some of the most demanding public waterfowl ground in the country, the Bayou Meto.

It is the most crowded, hardest hunted duck hole in Arkansas, and possibly the world. The morning boat race itself is an event.

He has a rich waterfowling heritage which extends back to his great grandfather, who market hunted the waters of Big Lake. Mike has also hunted in California while serving in the military.

From these experiences, Mike founded Black Ops Duck Calls and the Bayou Meto Boat Racing Association, and shares his hunting observations and experience in the paragraphs below.

Give Mike a friendly RefugeRat welcome.

Long Hunting Heritage

My great grandfather use to hunt Big Lake, Arkansas as a commercial hunter before the property was converted to a State Wildlife Management Area (WMA). There was a sequence of events that forged the change, including several murders, but that’s a story on to itself.

This is where I learned to duck hunt just like my dad, grandfather and my very well known great grandfather, Mr. Herman Nance.

As you might expect, I have been around ducks and duck hunting since I was a small child. My grandfather would bring his days kill home and ask me to help him clean them, but normally I just watched because he could clean a duck so quick.

Because of my family’s duck hunting heritage, I felt I had a reputation to uphold, and I learned to hunt and I learned to do it all on public shooting grounds.

At about ten years old, I went on my first hunt.

When I returned home from the Navy, I got serious about my duck hunting at Bayou Meto. I had been hunting there since I was 14, but now I was able to drive a boat, scout, and hunt on my own.

If you can hunt Bayou Meto successfully, you can hunt anywhere. On any given day, you might find some of the best callers and hunters in the United States, targeting the same ducks as you.

Wildlife Management Area Hunting Strategies

Our hunting really is unique compared to most other's hunting. The way we call, set up, everything. The birds just act differently in flooded timber than they do in fields, reservoirs, marshes, swamps, or other waterfowl habitat.

I have a nine year old son that I take with me almost every time I go duck hunting. He is the next generation of my family to carry on our tradition, so it's very important that he learns the right way.

For example, we never use a spinning wing decoy, we use a jerk string instead. Not that there is anything wrong with using a spinner, but I just like to hunt old school, plus I think after a while they get used to what a spinner looks like.

Also, my son can already blow a call well, but more importantly he has learned when to call by watching the ducks and the way they react.

Setting up right for the wind and knowing where the birds are going to work from is important too, in order to know where to call start calling them at.

The Race is On

Bayou Meto is the most heavily hunted public shooting ground in the world. If you can kill ducks here, you can kill them anywhere. On a typical weekend hunt day there will be over 50 duck boats lined up at 3:30 in the morning, waiting for the gate to open at 4:00 for the boat race in to one of ten holes. If you don’t get a hole, then you end up hunting uncut timber.

It’s crazy in the mornings and during the race. Try to imagine a NASCAR style event when all the motors are started simultaneously. Now take that image and substitute the race cars for duck boats, all firing up their engines at 3:50 in the morning.

The scene includes a cloud of smoke and the familiar smell of gasoline and two cycle engine oil. There is also the anticipation of the fleet of duck boats vying for the best holes, and in the process, wondering who will run into the trees or get washed up on to the levee. Will the slower boats let the faster boats pass without causing any problems? It’s exciting to say the least.

Every duck hunter should experience it at least one time. For some, that might be all they want, but for many it becomes almost as addictive as the hunt itself.

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