Book Review: The Gordon MacQuarrie Sporting Treasury

In a first for this blog, I'm going to submit a book review.  Truth be told, this will be the first time I'm doing a "book report" since I was in high school.  Not sure which book that would have been, but I'm sure it had a lot of pictures.  I recently completed The Gordon MacQuarrie Sporting Treasury.   A co-worker of mine loaned it to me after a recent conversation about good books.  I had never heard of Gordon MacQuarrie.

MacQuarrie was an outdoor writer for the Milwaukee Journal in the 1940's and 50's.  Prior to that he was an outdoor editor in Superior, WI.  In this book, he mostly writes about two things:  duck hunting and trout fishing in northern Wisconsin.  Many of his trout fishing stories take place on the River of Presidents- the Brule River.  MacQuarrie is credited with being one, if not the first, full-time outdoor writers in the country.  Unfortunately, he died in 1956 at age 56.

MacQuarrie's partner in his exploits is his father-in-law, who is referred to as Mr. President, or some form thereof.  Mr. President is the head of the Old Duck Hunters Association, Inc.  As MacQuarrie explains, Inc stands for incorrigible.  Mr. President frequently leads MacQuarrie on trips on the Brule and first exposes him to duck hunting.  Mr. President took MacQuarrie on his first duck hunt on one of the last days of the season in frigid weather, but great hunting.  Mr. President told MacQuarrie that he had waited to take MacQuarrie duck hunting because, "Too much of a good thing is bad for a growing boy."

MacQuarrie's descriptions of his duck hunts are vivid and paint images that we have all dreamed of and occasionally experience.  The stories are over 60-years old, but they are told in a manner that make them timeless.  He describes canvasbacks dropping into decoys in a snow squall.   The descriptions of the wooden decoys and putting on his Mackinaw field jacket takes you on an old-time hunt.  His hunts are all from long before people conceived of posting their hunts on Facebook or texting bragging pics to friends.  No, he hunted in a time when hunting was serious, uninterrupted by modern distractions of technology, and live decoys were legal.

In doing some research, I learned where some of his haunts were.  In his stories, he's always vague about where he actually hunted.  The places have names, but I'm sure they are self-applied locations.  Unfortunately, these places are no longer the honey holes MacQuarrie experienced.  He wouldn't even recognize his Hole in the Wall blind.  Where MacQuarrie was hunting stands of wild rice and wild celery grew to attract mallards and canvasbacks, today there are large homes and developments that have denigrated the water resource and made it unsuitable for those plants.  In turn, the ducks don't visit the same either.  This is, of course, the worst thing that can happen to a honey hole.

It is winter and many of the states' duck seasons are closed.  Reading some Gordon MacQuarrie hunting and fishing stories will be just the elixir you'll need to get you to another duck season.  Maybe next year I'll have my own "The Bluebills Died at Dawn" story.

Happy New Year!

Bonus Hunt

Time flies!  I'm not sure what happened to the Wisconsin waterfowl season.  It seems like a few weeks ago I was on a self-imposed "No fun stuff" stint.  Prior to waterfowl season I swore off doing anything that could be too much fun, so I could get house projects and adult responsibilities out of the way before the fall harvest season.  A few duck hunts, a trip to NoDak, tossing out some steel, and suddenly the waterfowl season is in the rear view mirror.

About three weeks ago winter arrived in northern Wisconsin.  I had hopes of getting in one last duck hunt with a 10-year old.  We checked every spring pond and stretch of flowing water in hopes of finding a few late migrating ducks.  No luck.  Everything was locked tight.  So, I begrudgingly put my gear away to get to the snow blower and began thinking about next season.  To say I was disheartened to put my stuff away with over three weeks to go in a 60 day season would be an understatement.

Then, I got invited by my friend, Eric, to go duck hunting on Green Bay.  He had been having some success on divers and was kind enough to recognize an addict suffering from withdrawal.  We left for Marinette about sunrise, which included about a 1.5 hour drive.  It was about 3-below zero when we left, so we had some concerns about the Bay being froze tight.  We arrived and realized our concerns were real.  There was a slight wind blowing out and we could see the ice was breaking up.  There was enough open water near shore for us to give it a try.  As we got ready we discussed how foolish duck hunting is.  Who goes and sits in the wind, gets their hands wet, stands in water, and lays in the snow when the air temperature is below zero?  Duck hunters, that's who.  We both agreed that we take pride in hunting when everybody else is sitting at home.  Needless to say, we had our choice of spots.

We didn't get a limit in almost a full day of hunting, but we got to see thousands of duck flying around the Bay.  We scared some ducks and killed a few.  Zeke, the 11-month old Chesapeake Bay Retriever, made some fine retrieves.  I have never said a bad word about Zeke and won't after I watched him fetch one of my ducks that had drifted out to over 100 yards.  Zeke earned his keep and my admiration after that.  It was cold enough that we each had to take a few walks and do some calisthenics to warm up.

We hunted a second day, but called it quits after we each reached the point where we required a "warm-up walk."  After we loaded up, I felt a bit more satisfied about the season.  It was short and not as successful as I had dreamed in August, but getting to hunt in a new locale when I hadn't expected to hunt anymore made the season a lot better.  

Only 10 months until waterfowl season!