About The Book
Duck Blinds
I have known
The Life and Times of a Tried-and-True Duck Hunter
Donny McElvoy’s new book, Duck Blinds I Have Known: The Life and Times of a Tried-and-True Duck Hunter, is a light-hearted and insightful look into the past 55 years of his addiction to duck and goose hunting. It is a culmination of well-seasoned waterfowl hunting tactics, tips, techniques, hilarious stories, and anecdotes of his lifetime of hunting experiences. Mix in some true confessions, sage advice, and a few little-known historical facts, and his book will keep you entertained throughout.
Here are a few excerpts:
“The waterfowl hunting fraternity is the social club of the hunting world. There are very few hunting situations where you are actually encouraged to make lots of loud, strange noises in the pursuit of wild game. Furthermore, duck blinds afford participants the opportunity to spend time with friends and family in close quarters. Within those walls, there is constant talking, laughing, cutting up, and, of course, hunting. And all the while, everyone gets to witness some of nature’s most glorious sights and sounds.”
“Best known camouflage: Just Be Still! Today, we have the latest and greatest camo patterns known to man. And as highly effective as they are, the least movement possible will always be the golden rule. Obviously, you have to get in position when you are working birds. Your head is on a swivel. You have to twist and turn to see the ducks that you are calling. Double-team the ducks. Watch your partner’s eyes. If you are facing one direction and your buddy is facing another, stay still and follow his eyes as he watches the birds, and he will do the same as you pick them up into your view. In situations when you can see the dog on the stand, you can watch its eyes, because I promise you, he will be staring right at the ducks…”
“I soon received my two Mathews-motorized, Roto-Duck decoys, and I couldn’t wait to put them to the test. Still somewhat skeptical, I set the decoys up on their metal stakes and turned them on, then jumped in the blind to see what happened. To this day, I have never seen ducks go so ape shit over a decoy. Virtually every duck we saw made a beeline for them. We watched two mallards bail in and literally hit one of the Roto-Ducks!”
“My friends and I were hunting in a blind that was in shin-deep water that adjoined a large cornfield behind us. There were four of us in the blind that morning. We were just shy of full limits when we witnessed a coyote sneaking up on those damn mechanical decoys. We watched in astonishment as the coyote positioned itself to pounce on my Roto-Ducks! Just then, two black ducks appeared and kamikazed on the decoys, which finished off our limits. I was hunting with some very seasoned duck hunters that day. We were all kind of speechless about what this Roto-Duck decoy had just produced. No one realized until after we were picking up for the day that none of us had raised a duck call the entire morning.”
“I was just, twenty-years-old and I knew that I was going spend the rest of my life in the big house! I stood there speechless. I thought for sure that he had been surveilling us all morning and that any second, Officer Parker was going flip that damn boat over and reveal what was stacked up underneath it. But he just stood there – checking our licenses, guns, and our ducks. And all the while, Haskins kept on with his diversionary tactic of asking questions and nagging at him. Parker finished up his inspection with us and said, ‘We’ve had reports of some folks shooting late and taking too many birds, and I came down here to check around.’ I was wearing a pair of mirror-lensed Ray-Bans. I know to this day, if Officer Willie Parker could have seen the pure terror and guilt in my eyes, we would have been done for.”