When you're following your guide and he's having to use a canoe paddle to break ice so we can wade through more freezing, waist-deep water to reach a hunting spot well before daylight, it's easy to ask yourself a simple question: what am I thinking?

What compelled me to get up in the middle of the night, dress in my warmest hunting clothes and a pair of already cold waders then drive across rutted dirt roads so I can park and then walk to flooded timber?

This experience is, I'm told, part of the allure of duck hunting.

Like ice fishing, duck hunting has never quite resonated with me. And this morning, the only resonating I'm getting is the echoing in my head of chattering teeth.

The day before, a good friend laughed when I told him I was heading to western Alabama for a few days of deer, duck and hog hunting -along with a side of fishing. He knew the weather forecast. I hadn't bothered to check.

http://www.theoutdoorwire.com/image_archive/2134490.jpeg> Alabama Black Belt Adventures- using the rich natural resources of Alabama's Black Belt to help cure widespread poverty.

The temperature in Birmingham was predicted to be somewhere between "cold" and "nuclear winter." Where I was headed, it was supposed to get really cold. Not a promising start for the Cast & Blast event being held for a small group of outdoor media by Alabama Black Belt Adventures (ALBBA).

ALBAA is an initiative designed to promote hunting and fishing into the economically depressed 23-county area known as the Alabama Black Belt. Rich in wildlife, the citizens of the black belt represent the lower third of the state's incomes.

ALBAA is the first unified effort to boost the economic and standard of residents by marketing and promoting the natural resources and outdoor recreational opportunities of the region.

"The region has a wealth of wildlife," says ALBAA Project Director Pam Swanner, "but there's never been a unified push to promote the area to hunters and anglers. That's my job."

So Swanner rolled out the region's welcome mat for a group of outdoor writers and editors offering the opportunity to sample the region's hunting and fishing at Sumter Farms, a 10,000 acre hunting and fishing property and lodge in the Geiger area of Sumter County. A longtime hunting destination, Sumter Farms and Noxubee Lodge had been, until fairly recently, a private hunting preserve.

Today, Hazel and Mitchell Bell roll out their old-southern hospitality with amazing food, comfortable accommodations, and before-the-crack-of-dawn hunting forays. You can head into the farm's 300 acre flooded timber impoundment to shoot "woodies" or into the woods where hunting blinds look across long greenfields where trophy-class whitetail wander.

For me, accepting an invitation means sampling the attractions. So, there I was, nervously inching along in a brand-new pair of Red Head waders, carrying a borrowed Mossberg shotgun (courtesy of event sponsor Mossberg) and hoping I didn't drown both of us in the freezing water.

My threesome included Grandview Media's Hillary Dyer and Sure Shot Game Calls owner Charlie Holder. A videographer was tagging along to document our time in the timber. Having zero experience calling ducks, I was glad Holder was there, along with his lanyard full of various Sure Shot duck calls. I was even happier when I heard the videographer was primarily assigned to follow Holder- the experienced duck hunter.

We were also accompanied by a "gentleman's hunting dog" from Mississippi's Wildrose Kennels. World renowned trainer/Wildrose owner Mike Stewart had amazed us the afternoon before with an exhibition of just what his dogs could do.

http://www.theoutdoorwire.com/image_archive/2134488.jpeg> After breaking ice to get into the flooded timber, part of the fun was watching the ice refreeze while you tried to stand still and watch for ducks. Jim Shepherd/OWDN photo.

This frigid morning, we didn't have Stewart, only the dog and some simplified hand and voice commands Stewart had patiently attempted to drill into our collective noggins the afternoon before. Theoretically, those commands would convince our dog to leap off the dog stand (to which his paws kept freezing) into freezing water where he would find and return our unlucky ducks.

"Woodies will come first," our guide said, "they come fast, so be ready." Then, he disappeared into the fallen timber, leaving me standing against the base of a big tree wondering where the 'woodies' would be coming from.

The answer didn't take long. They came from -everywhere. No matter where I turned, it seemed wood ducks were heading toward us in the early morning light. Out of reflex, I tossed the Mossberg to my shoulder, flipped the safety and promptly downed a duck with my first shot.

When he hit the water, I realized the thud I heard as he hit the ice meant he wasn't going anywhere.

So I turned back to the wood ducks and blazed away. When no ducks spiraled down, I reloaded and kept firing. After what seemed like hours, I had filled the flooded impoundment with bobbing shotgun shells, but only a pair of wood ducks.
That's where I was when the duck flurry just..died. After a few minutes of no activity, our guide started working his way toward me. "I dropped one right over there," I said,"It didn't move."

He smiled, turned a couple of feet to his left and picked up my original bird. "Nice shot," he said, "not often you see that kind of snap shooting."

I was certain I was turning into a duck hunter, until I fumbled the Mossberg into the icy water. He cocked his head and casually asked: "you going to reach in there and fetch it?"

"Nope," I countered, " are you?" The reply was pretty simple: "nope."

So we came up with a team salvage plan. When I worked my boot under the stock and raised the shotgun until he could see the sling, he would stick the canoe paddle under the sling and raise it up out of water.

The plan worked, and I was quickly holding a cold - and wet- Mossberg shotgun that appeared not too much the worse for wear.

"Gonna have to be cleaned," he said.

"Nah, I said. "I'll run a bore snake through it and it'll be just as good as new."

We both laughed, then realized shotgun hadn't been out of the water two minutes and it was already frozen solid. Nothing about the action would move- meaning the gun might have been loaded, but the safety was engaged and the action wasn't moving until the gun thawed out.

Slogging to our hunting companions, I noticed a limit of ducks on Holder's strap. But his expression didn't look like someone who'd bagged his limit.

"Can't believe it," he said as we walked, "the shotgun was on the stand one second and in the water the next. When I fished it out, I had wet neoprene gloves, frozen hands and a shotgun I couldn't get open."

"Understand completely," I said, showing him my version of a "shot-cicle" as we walked back to the trucks, laughing as we revisited our various shots at ducks that shot at us from every angle.

When we climbed into the trucks to head back to the lodge for a hot shower and a late breakfast. And as the feeling slowly returned to my fingers and toes, I realized a single morning in frigid timber had changed m.

Did I mention I really like duck hunting?

--Jim Shepherd


Editor's Note: Learn more about Alabama Black Belt Adventures athttp://www.alabamablackbeltadventures.org.

See Sumter farms athttp:///wp-content/uploads/2013/06/sumter-farm-hunting-lodge-geiger-alabama.pdf.