Collegiate Rookie Series new hunter Patricia retrieving a harvested bird during her first hunt at Pinola.

Big duck season is here and as part of our Hunting Wire/Benelli USA Rookie Series we spent some time the last couple of weeks taking a batch of new hunters out for their first experience. Teal season and big duck season in Louisiana are as different as night and day. Sure, ducks are always flying, but, for our Louisiana students, an 80-degree morning versus a 40-degree morning is quite the shift. Fortunately, we have a great host in Mr. Paul Dickson who for the last 7 years has graciously provided us run of his Pinola Camp such that we can bring a pile of college student new hunters up to northwest Louisiana to enjoy the hospitality, eat some great food, chase some ducks and take a trip to the Pinola Aviary to see first hand Mr. Dickson’s dedication to avian conservation.

A successful morning with Dr. Kevin Ringelman (far left) and LSU Collegiate new hunters (from left) Emma, Alex, Alexis, and Aidan showing off their mixed morning bag.

We headed up to Pinola on Monday mid-day as we wanted to be sure we had ample time on the range letting our students practices with the new Benelli shotguns that Benelli USA loaned to us for the fall season. Chasing big ducks at Pinola is a great experience for the students as we are in fixed blinds, the birds tend to decoy well and the shooting is always good. But, this year's trip to Pinola was extra special as we had a guest, Dr. Mike Brasher, a waterfowl scientist with our friends at Ducks Unlimited and the Co-host of the Ducks Unlimited Podcast. We were fortunate Mike came down to experience the Hunting Wire/Benelli USA Rookie Series as they videoed the students' experience, and interviewed Dr. Kevin Ringelman, who also happens to be the Endowed Ducks Unlimited Professor of Wetland and Waterfowl Conservation at Louisiana State University. On top of that, Mike conducted interviews with the student new hunters about their experience and did a podcast episode that should be hitting around the middle of December.

Jackson (far left) decided that for LSU Collegiate Rookie Series new hunters (from left) Manon and Zoe their first post-hunt picture should have a pirogue in it (the old guy on the right is Dr. Bret Collier)

But, let's get to it! The usual combination of nervousness and excitement, with some added fear about how cold it was Tuesday morning filled the gun room as we got everyone into waders, give each shotgun a final safety check before casing them up, distribute ammo and give what last-minute guidance we can before we hop in the UTVs and head out to the various hunting blinds for the morning. Paul had a plan in place for who was where, and I got lucky and drew the high blind in the gadwall hole. One of my undergraduate student workers Jackson McCain, a longtime hunter who was helping out, and I took two new hunters, Zoe and Manon with us that morning. Zoe and Manon were completely new to the hunting experience and came to the new hunter program via one of their friends who was a student of mine as they wanted to try hunting but have never had the opportunity. In addition, we had two graduate students, Patricia, a Ph.D. student who studies avian ecology in Africa, Alex, an M.S. student evaluating predation of waterfowl nests (also a hunter along to help), and three more new hunters in Alexis, Aidan, Emma.

Shooting started out quickly, with wood ducks, mallards, shovelers, and gadwall piling in as part of their initial flights of the morning. Harvested birds hit the water all around the blinds. The morning was gray and overcast, which kept the birds consistent for several hours. The shooting was good, and everyone had the opportunity to take turns and shoot at singles or pairs decoying in with the more experienced hunters calling and playing backup.

At Pinola, everyone meet’s on the back porch overlooking the Red River post-hunt to discuss the experience of watching the morning wake up in the timber. Our hunt was good, students all smiling as they brought in strings full of ducks. Everyone was shot, and not everyone harvested, but everyone was safe and had fun. The diversity of species was great, mallards, wigeon, wood ducks, green-winged teal, gadwall, ringnecks, and shovelers. This is what it is about for Kevin and me, seeing the students reducing a public good to private possession, and having the chance to share that experience, with us as they enter the

Each year the Collegiate New Hunter Program/Hunting Wire Rookie Series provides the opportunity to engage with this new cohort of wildlife conservationists and bring to their training the science, management, and ethics of hunting, and then have the chance to provide them with a high-quality hunting experience to integrate them into our outdoor fraternity is, both professionally and personally, one of the highlights of every year.

A successful ending to a great Collegiate Rookie Series hunt supported by the Hunting Wire and Benelli USA and our friends at Ducks Unlimited to coming in to film and interview the students!

I hope you will follow our regular updates on the Collegiate Rookie Series on the Hunting Wire and catch up with us on social media. Of course, anyone interested in the long-standing Collegiate New Hunter Program at LSU, please feel free to reach out to us at the below contact info.

Looking forward to a great fall season creating new hunters,

Bret Collier
Professor of Wildlife Ecology
School of Renewable Natural Resources
Louisiana State University
bret@lsu.edu
@drshortspur (Twitter and Instagram)

Kevin Ringelman
Associate Professor
H. Dale Hall Ducks Unlimited Professor of Wetlands and Waterfowl Conservation
School of Renewable Natural Resources
Louisiana State University
kringe2@lsu.edu
@kevinringelman (Twitter)