HammerTime

“A Life Changing Decision”

If you have ever hunted with us, ever thought about doing so or wondered why others do, this will be one manuscript you will want to read. While the title says a lot, I’m using this column to share some personal news with you … but first we need to discuss the duck explosion of 2009!

The word is out and thanks to the cooperation of Mother Nature, Delta Waterfowl, Ducks Unlimited and the various state and federal organizations that work toward the common goal of making duck hunters dreams come true … it appears this coming hunting season will be one for the record books. In a recent Press Release Delta Waterfowl commented; “The 2009 duck breeding populations and habitat conditions are eye-popping.” It appears the total duck population is up 25% this year and for the first time ever, twice as many pintail nested in the United States than in the Canadian prairie. Any way you calculate the numbers, it looks to me like this coming season will be one for the record books. Young hunters should have a chance to craft their own tales about the duck explosion of 2009 and hand the tales down to their kids and/or grandkids. And that thought brings me back to the decisions my wife and I have made regarding our hunting business.

In years past I have written about a hunt or two I was fortunate enough to experience with our oldest grandson, from Texas. One such manuscript related to his first duck and the memories created that morning. I think he was eight or nine at the time. The problem is, I’ve only hunted with him one other time and he is now a senior in high school. What happened? It’s simple; I’m in the hunting business. In fact, I have been involved with the hunting business, to some capacity, since I started taking my first paying clients in the late 70s and early 80s and I take my business obligations seriously.

While I have lived a dream and gotten paid for it, this is … and will always be … a business. Since my business is hunting, I have always felt a special type of obligation to my clients to do all I could legally do to maintain the quality of their hunts. Client obligations come before the enjoyment of a family or buddy hunt. I like being able to look our clients in the eye and let them know that we felt we were doing all we could do to provide them with the experience they expected.

For that matter, Jackie was not with me when I first started guiding for the first time, but we have been together somewhere around 16 to 18 years. In fact, Jackie is responsible for much of the success we have seen with our hunting operation in recent years. Better yet, she understands business obligations. Still yet, we have never spent a Thanksgiving or Christmas day together that we were not working with clients or at least scouting and preparing for their arrival. Another way to look at that goes back to grandchildren. Chase, the senior in high school, is not the only grand child. We now have four and we hope to have time to spend some quality time with them, both in the woods and over the holidays.

Last week I received an email from a young man who won a youth hunt from Delta Waterfowl in 1999. The hunt was at our lodge and included 20 or more boys and girls, plus their guardians. I certainly did enjoy those events and when this particular young man informed me, he was now in the Air Force and had a young baby … he wanted to teach how to duck hunt, his memories touched my heart. In that young man’s eyes I made a difference and hopefully I’ll be able to do the same for some of my grandkids in the years to come. To accomplish this, there are going to be some changes in the way we do things … after this coming duck season.

The Changes:

We are not planning on getting out of the hunting business right now, but we are putting our main lodge building up for sale. Our plans call for this coming season to be the last season we offer guided hunts that included food and lodging. After this coming season (2009/10), our guided hunters will have an opportunity to book an Un-guided hunt with us and have a member of our guide staff guide for them, if they want them to. Our guides have agreed to stay on board and help with preparations and scouting. They know the ground as well as I do and even more importantly, they know the way the birds work our ground. If a group of hunters does not want to bring their on ATV and decoys with them, they will be able to hire one of the guides to furnish all the equipment and throw in their knowledge about the birds. It will be a money saver for clients, who have been doing guided hunts in past years. These changes will also open up additional ground for our regular Un-guided hunters. We are keeping the same ground and we will be scouting and managing the ground like we have in past years, but these changes will provide Jackie and I with a bit more time.

We are also planning on doing a small membership program. The membership program will be for two, possibly three, different hunting groups, each day we hunt. A hunt group, under the membership program, will be for no more than four people per hunt. Individual membership groups will be controlled by the group themselves, as far as selecting who hunts in their individual group on a given day.

Even though our obligations to business will continue to come first, these changes will free Jackie and I up enough to enjoy some extra time with our ever-growing number of grandchildren. We will also have more time to dedicate to and work with our sponsors, the product testing we do and the media opportunities we are considering. These changes will open up ground for unguided hunters that was only available to them on rare occasions and drastically reduce the cost for our current guided hunter clientele. For a business wanting to entertain clients, or four hunting buddies wanting to share a membership with family and friends, the opportunity to experience some of our state's flooded timber and rice field hunting will now exist … without the crowds associated with public ground, through our membership program.

I’ll still be in the hunting business and I will still be living the dream, but business, like life, requires decisions be made. Some of those decisions come easy and on occasion one will be … “A Life Changing Decision”, but even then, the excitement of the hunt is ever so important and I’m looking forward to the duck explosion of 2009!

Charles “HammerTime” Snapp
www.arkansaswaterfowl.com
snapp1@sbcglobal.net

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