doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Duck clubs, have any stories?

Not so long ago, I went to a dinner party at a 1920 duck hunting club/lodge in St. Louis. Just as you would think, a great stone hall, large fireplaces at either end and rough hewn timber through-out.
Some of the best waterfowling prints hung in the main hall.
The land has been sold, and all that remains is the one bulding, it is a gentlemen's club today.
What a glorious place it must have been, I could just see those wonderful fowling guns all in their place.

Lowell:
The Duck Club I belong to was also started in the 1920’s. I think transportation made it possible for people to commute from the city to the duck marsh without overnight stays. Our club was on leased land until the mid 1980’s when the owner died and his wife decided to sell it to us. She would only sell the marsh to us if we had a deed restriction keeping it forever wild. The original owner made his money trapping; furs were very popular and high priced during the 20’s. He would take 5000 plus rats from our marsh in the days when a fur brought $1.00. He would hire Indian families from Canada to come down and flesh furs and prepare them for market. Anyhow, I first hunted there in 1965 as a young man with my Uncle. Most of the members were real characters, worked hard and played hard. My uncle shot a Model 12 Duck Gun and a AH Fox CE grade. Breakfast before the hunt was always a big event with lots of leg pulling and joking around. Everyone met for lunch at the club house (a 1880’s farm house converted, since burned) for venison burgers, fresh duck and Muskrat stew (and plenty of scotch) .
As I said we bought the place, 1800 acres in 1986 for $230. per acre if you can believe that! We are still operating today with few changes. We now allow gas motors and spinner decoys (ugh!). Many of us are now shooting vintage guns just like the old guys. One of our original members is still alive but gave up hunting a few years back at close to 90. It is a special place, only a hunter truly understands. Life is good.

Congrats Craig - great to see the old marsh haunts with their club houses still survive and sometimes thrive. Regretably my story is somewhat different. Thirty years ago I was invited to club on Wye Marsh. Those in Ontario will surely know of this locale. Famed for its hunting at one time. There were 8 members in the club all sons of the founders. The youngest member was 72 when I attended, 7 members were present at the club the 8th then in his early 90s was not able to attend opening day. None of the descendants of the members were interested or perhaps the cost of buying out the other member's shares was too daunting. They had 5000 acres deeded to them and now that land with it's massive log main lodge and attendant log cabins was valued in the millions of dollars. The club charter forbid anyone to sell shares outside the membership unless all the other members refused to buy the share and then to gain membership unanimous approval was required for the new member. It was two years later that the land and lodge were sold to the Onario Provincial Government and the lodge as a hunting establishment is no more. I am sure that there were likely deep pocketed people who would have bought the place but it was not to be. I only hunted there the one time but I well recall the lodge, the paintings, carvings and furnishings which made the place exactly what I then and now think a well established gentleman's hunting club should look like.

No real clubs around here, if there was, they are long gone now. Most of the "clubs" these days are usually just a group of people who lease a spot on the Platte river, a pit around the OshKosh area or on the Missouri. The only hunt club with a history around here would be the Peru hunt club and I dont think its around anymore, last I saw it was for sale.

I guess I belong to sort of a hunt club, a fraternity would be a better description...the club of "guys who hunt public marshes". Its a good club to belong to. Usually you're by yourself, you're where the ducks want to be and because its usually alot of work to get to the good spots, not alot of "fellow" hunters around to bother you. Its not as glamourous as some other places, but the hunting is fantastic, probably only to be outdone in the prairie pothole region & Canada.

Best,
Dustin

Our club doesn't go back to the 20's, but was formed in the years after WWII. There was a Japanese Internment camp at Newell, CA, in the middle of the Tulelake basin, on the Oregon, California border. At the time, the vast majority of birds on the Pacific Flyway funneled through the Tulelake and Lower Klamath Wildlife Refuges, some 6,000,000 ducks and geese a year.
Returning GI's could homestead 160 acres of the drained lakebed and for $1.00 could buy one of the Internment Camp buildings. Two returning GI's homesteaded one parcel and bought 3 Camp buildings to form a Duck Club, the Greenhead Lodge. They both lived in So. Cal. and ran a summer camp for boys in the summer and the Duck Club in the fall. One of them was a pilot and bought a C47 from the military and flew hunters to Tulelake to stay at the Greenhead Lodge. They charged $10.00 per day for room and board.
The venture lasted about 6 years and then they sold the property to a group of the people who had come up there to hunt and it turned into a private club but they sold all but the house and 2.5 acres. The hunting is done on the two refuges. It remains that way to this day.
My friend and I started hunting there in the early 60's in high school as a guest of the son of one of the members and eventually bought into the club when memberships became available. As has happened with so many clubs, the membership aged and when the hunting deteriorated in the 1980's, it was hard to find new members. Thus the membership dwindled down to today where the club is owned by myself, my friend and my son. We still use it for hunting ducks, geese, pheasants, quail and digger squirrels in the spring. It is a wonderful place that will someday pass to my son and hopefully will continue as a great place to hunt. I have included several photos of the old club.
Gordon

Gordon, a nice piece of history you have - thanks for the pictures.
Just north of St.Louis in the flood plane lands, the area is dotted with duck clubs. Membership is private and expensive.
So the tradition carries on around here - altho' not on as grand of a scale!
...but it is the premier sport to belong.
My land that I own now was once a huntin' & fishin' club for the locals.

It was just last year that I was invited to shoot one of these clubs - Toddy(my Choc. Lab) and Beesley was ready to go for it.
...but the guys weren't too keen on old doubles on their property. I was offered-up a beefy autoloader for a loaner gun - well, we just went our merry ways.

I grew up in the St. Louis area and hunted or visited some of the old clubs. My great grandfather, an industrialist in the St. Louis area, was a founding member (in the 1870s) of Dardenne out in St. Charles. He and his buddies apparently would take the train to St. Charles and then be met by someone with a mule or horse drawn wagon to go the rest of the way. The original club house burned to the ground a few years ago and was rebuilt recently. Members have their own room and the main living/dining room looks out over the marsh. They have mostly deeper water and have ducks using the place when other areas are frozen solid.
Then my grandfather started a club in the 40's down the road, Baldwin Land Co, with some friends. It didn't even have a club house until the 1980s, when they built one on stilts maybe 10-12 up in the air because of the flooding. Some of the other clubs in the area like Silvers and especially Quivre are pretty fancy. August Busch and family have a beautiful farm and duck hunting spot in the area too and that goes back several generations. The hot duck hunting is near the confluence of the Missouri and Missiissippi rivers. Urban sprawl is knocking but so far the ducks don't seem to mind. It's an area that is almost impossible to free lance a duck hunt but, if you ever get a chance to see one of these clubs, jump at the opportunity.

I am the perennial guest of a friend at his duck club on Lake St. Clair, American side. It’s on an island, and is “old”.
Each year when we arrive, the same old fellow greets us at the ferry, takes our bags, and drives us out to the cottage. When we arrive, greetings are exchanged, bags magically dissappear, and we repair to our rooms. At dinner time, we go downstairs to find our guns wiped clean and placed in the racks. A fire crackles in the stone fireplace, and old decoys tastefully lay about the mantle. A panoply of hors d'oerves is arrayed, We have cocktails, and catch up on things before we sit down to eat. No venison sausage for these gents.
We draw at nine, the boats leave at 5. No second knocks.
Every year, I slip Joe Sam (our caretaker and guide) a bottle of whiskey, as a gift/gratuity, and sorta keep it quiet, as drinking by the workers is frowned on. He never lets on that he tipples between draws.
In the predawn hours, He motors us out to our spot, and drops us off in the darkness. I think he can navigate the bay in his sleep. I always ask him if the whiskey was OK, and he always smiles, and tells me “Yessirreee, that bottle was jusssst right!.” It makes for a nice day in the hide.
SO, everyone is happy, and we wait for the cans to start flying into the celery.

On Sunday, a little fatigued, and not looking forward to the drive home, I began to wonder something. As we waited for the ferry to dock, and we were saying our goodbyes, I decided to ask Joe Sam why he always tells me the whiskey is “Jussst Right!”. His answer? “Well, Mr, Z, if’n the bottle was any betta, you woont a give it to me, and if’n it was any worse, I coonta drunk it. So, it was Jussst Right!”

See y'all next year.

Thorny, What was the objection to old doubles? Hard to believe it was a deal breaker. RCC