Tammy's Disappearing Jalapeño Poppers Recipe

Beyond the duck blinds, some of the best times to be had at duck camp are around the dinner table, or anywhere like-minded hunters gather to eat, drink and socialize.  Where shooting warms the gun barrels, good food and fellowship warms the spirit, regardless of whether the ducks cooperated!

The following recipe was given to me by Tammy W. F.  Among the oldest of friends, I've know Tammy since middle school and she's one of the best natural-born cooks you'll ever meet.  She came by it naturally, too: 30-something years ago, the best collection of hunting trophies within walking distance of my house hung on the stone fireplace in her family's home.  I've taken the small liberty of adding marinaded teal or dove to her recipe, but it's not necessary.  They'll dissappear just as quickly without.  Tammy's Jalapeno Poppers became instantly popular at our home, and among local duck hunting circles, most recently at the 8th Annual DuckSouth.com Teal Hunt.

Donia's Boudin Stuffed Mushrooms Recipe

The term boudin in this part of the world commonly implies boudin blanc (rice and pork), but may also mean boudin with crawfish, crab, shrimp, and rice. Most of Louisiana's cajun's do not consider boudin a sausage, but it is cased like sausage. White pepper, green onions and cayenne seem to be prevalent ingredients. Boudin is readily available most readily in southern Louisiana, particularly in the Lafayette and Lake Charles area, though it may be found nearly anywhere in Cajun Country, including eastern Texas.  Boudin is sold from convenience stores along Interstate 10 to restaurants dedicated to it, and recipes vary.  Boudin, jambalaya, gumbo, étouffée, and dirty rice are among the greatest culinary masterpieces from which southern humanity has benefitted thanks to Louisana.

The Annual Ducksouth.com Teal Hunt has evolved through time into an invite-only, potluck dinner and social the night before.  Friends from as many as 5 states convene at Willow Break lodge in Mississippi's South Delta to share their favorite hunting camp recipes, drink and swap stories early into the morning.  A few actually get up to hunt teal, but the event is not about actual hunting; it's about everything else that makes hunting camp, times with hunting friends, the absolute best of times.

Rick Daughtry, President of the West Mississippi Hunting Retriever Club in Vicksburg, Mississippi, has attended most of the annual teal socials.  He gets together a few times a year with close hunting buddies for beer drinking and boudin making, and his private-reserve boudin is an event staple.  Like Bibles in church. Like black dogs in duck blinds.  The amount of cayenne in Rick's boudin, we think, is directly proportional to

Ducks Unlimited Life Sponsor

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Ramsey Russell's GetDucks.com

The Lifeblood of Tradition

Like most of life's best moments, my youngest son, the middle child, posed a big question out of the blue: is there anywhere in the world left to discover, places that no one has ever been?  If so, it was plainly evident by his earnest demeanor, he intended soon to explore and to discover them, barefoot of course, with nothing but his trusty, iron-sighted air rifle slung over his shoulders and a pocket full of loose pellets so that they didn't noisily rattle in the canister like they would, later and inevitably upon his much celebrated return, clatter in his Mother's ill-fated dryer.

A thousand images of a young adventurous boy probing the wildest and most impenetrable corners of the world overwhelmed me.  Before I could speak he continued with the fascinating depiction of discovery and fame that only a young boy with a trusty pellet rifle can conjure.  Good stuff.  I smiled and soaked it in. As it grew quiet except for the hum of all-terrain tires over asphalt, I sensed he awaited an answer. It's a big world full of dark woods and long rivers, I told him, but whether someone's been there before, or even if it's smack in the middle of the world's third-largest city, I shared, it's our true selves that is the most enduring discovery.  Unimpressed, the conversation abruptly turned to the downrange trajectory of flat versus conical pellet types.

Ursa Major

Bear hunting. I like it. I think I would especially liked it in Mississippi nearly 150 years ago before the railroad companies penetrated the virgin deciduous hardwood forests, as described by Faulkner, that rivaled the Amazonian rain forest. Early Delta settler, Bobo, reputedly shot more than 300 bears during a single season back in those days, and his dogs went on to become the most legendary lion dogs in Africa. I've got the manuscript about a gentleman, as written by his grand nieces, whose father never kept count of the deer and bears killed near Tutwiler, but knew for fact he'd killed 19 panthers over the years. Holt Collier, of Teddy Roosevelt bear-guide fame, was an expert bear hunter that ironically made an above-average living selling bear meat to the rail road to feed their labor. Bear was more profitable than venison because bears weigh more than deer.

I'll tell you a bear story many haven't heard. My dad, who never really had much, called me as I was nearing college graduation, and offered to throw in on a hunt if there was one to be had. I booked a Saskatchewan bear hunt. Had always wanted to hunt one and it's a comparably cheap big game hunt.

I traveled way, way up into northwestern Saskatchewan, deep into the boreal forest.

5,000

New Year's Day seems fitting for milestones and renewed beginnings . The sun rose slowly and remained obscurely in gloom.  An flock of green-wings flying low to the water skirted the decoys, never checking up.  For about an hour, several thousand snow geese paraded overhead and well out of shotgun range, and as their ululating cries faded we were left with only the deafening silence of wind sweeping across the bleak Grand Prairie. The hunt was perfectly slow paced for gathering thoughts between whispered visits with son Duncan, who just the day before had garnered his first double with a pair of green-wings.

Plenty Ducks

Like a former heavyweight prize-fighter that hasn't yet mustered a successful comeback, Mississippi's South Delta oftentimes seems to bear only slight resemblance to its historic reputation.  Back in the days, it is storied, overwintering ducks numbered hundreds of thousands and blanketed the soybean fields that stretched from near Vicksburg to Delta National Forest.

A few years ago while reviewing 30 some-odd-year-old property maps, I learned that among Willow Break LLC 's long list of agriculturally-speculative owners was the prominent former client of my grandfather.  A certain photo I had always pondered was collaborative proof:  the former farming operation presently known as Willow Break is where my old mentor shot his last greenhead in the early 80s.  He struggled to muster the voice for such recollections during our final visit a few years later.

The South Delta landscape has changed.  Dynamic systems that flooded the area naturally for eons have since been beset by engineered feat.  Flooding invariably occurs during the late-spring months when water collects for as far as the human eye can see before "speeding to the Gulf." Large buckshot-clay fields created mostly during my own lifetime to plant gold-like soybeans are again dedicated to young plantation thickets of native hardwood species.  They'll likely not resemble historic stands until my children are old, but already comprise more than a third-million, nearly-contiguous acres of wildlife habitat that structurally offset contemporary agricultural losses caused by backwater flooding. Black bears, long-since endangered in the region, have staged a comeback.

West of the creek that intersects Willow Break, near a hole named Pintail for reasons unknown but misleading, is a 300-feet length of old circle pivot.  It should have been dismantled preceding the farm's reversion to hardwoods. I'm glad it wasn't.  The sagging, metal spans are ensconced in vines; surrounding hardwoods incrementally eclipse its height each year. Were it not for steel cable supports, it'd have long ago collapsed.   Contemplating transformations among south delta people and land, as symbolized by the irrigation relic, sometimes helps to pass time while hunting under its shadow.

When mallards literally carpet the area anymore, it's more likely for hours than for days.  There are ducks, more at some times than others and usually just enough, but nothing like what must certainly have once wintered here.  Duck hunters are eternal optimists: they'll return one future day.

Willow Break's few duck hunters are necessarily dedicated.  Limits are earned. If they say there are no ducks, it means that there are somewhere between zero and a few savvy handfuls of doctorate-eligible ducks that have strategically outmaneuvered local hunters since Eisenhower.  Thriving populations of white-tailed deer and wild hogs are minor consolations when ducks are as stale as last week's donuts. But persistence pays. We hunt regardless.

Smiles creased our faces as we counted about 3 dozen duck silhouettes emerge from the tall, flooded coffee weed covering almost 2 acres in Pintail. Plenty ducks for Duncan and me. Within 15 minutes of sunrise, a crystal-clear December day was imminent.  Anxious to return, ducks paraded in slow, lazy circles overhead as we settled into the south blind.   The brisk north wind blowing directly into our faces, I hoped, would render strategic advantage.  With 4 well-spaced decoys situated far behind, and a pair placed up front for a focal point. We shared a moment absorbing nearby mallard and gadwall murmurings.

A pair of woodies rocketed in abruptly, startling us as we loaded our guns. The plan was unconventionally simple: ducks would seek safety among the coffee weed shadows after sun up, and when they banked over the front decoys to get right with the wind, we'd take them.  By the time a handsome limit of gadwalls and wood ducks hung from my leather strap, Duncan was already half way to his own as the sun crested the horizon.  Spiced with enough great shots to overpower inevitable misses, Duncan soon weighted his strap with 3 mallards.  Like the heft of a new shotgun, heavy duck straps are never burdensome.

We returned to Pintail the morning after Christmas.  The north wind was bitter.  Heavily overcast, it was spitting snow.  Few more than a dozen mallards greeted us.  We placed stools in the coffee weeds and loosely strung 9 decoys in singles, pairs and trios along the periphery, about 45 yards in each direction of our position.  It's hard to hide in the absence of shadows, so we agreed to shoot the first pass low enough over our hide.  Returning in pairs and singles, mallards slid over the cover for a glimpse at the susie softly beckoning them nearer. It took a couple hours, with young Duncan and me shooting our respective sides.  Lively banter between volleys warmed us. There were plenty; the time passed too quickly.

Ramsey Russell's GetDucks.com