Talk Tennessee duck hunting, and the first place that comes to mind is the legendary Reelfoot Lake.

My first inkling of another promising waterfowling area in Tennessee was when I noted a sign naming a flowage I crossed as the "Duck River." The idea was reinforced when I saw the Benton County sign with a duck logo, and then every few miles, I seemed to spy another waterfowl refuge sign with a stylized goose painted on it.

On the trip up from Georgia, I had lunch at a catfish restaurant in Camden, Tenn. A group of men was talking about duck hunting, which I also took as a favorable indication I was in serious waterfowling country. One of those at the table was Dave Ulderich, area manager for the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency.

"I hear that you used to have some good duck hunting around here?" I asked.

The question was not as flippant as it might sound, because more times than not when I would scout a new area, the answer was, "Yeah, we used to have some good duck hunting, but the birds don't much get down anymore. The weather has been so warm that we don't have the numbers that we use to."

Floating blinds are held in place by pipes sunk into the lakebed.

To my pleasant surprise, Ulderich responded, "The duck and goose counts on the federal refuges are near their annual maximums, and if the weather is halfway cooperative, duck hunting should be good."

Each year, on the first Saturday in August, drawings are held in Big Sandy for 83 blind locations on nearby hunting areas. Last year, Ulderich said 2,300 people attended the drawing, which more than doubled the town's population. The fortunate winners have exclusive rights to chosen blind locations for the entire season, as long as they occupy the blinds before legal shooting time each day. If they do not claim the blinds by then, anyone can use them.

As I drove into Big Sandy, a small community on Kentucky Lake in Northwest Tennessee, I was encouraged by the numbers of duck boats and decoys I saw in the yards of local residents. These people were serious about waterfowling -- my kind of folks.

Hardcore Duck Hunters
Garry Mason, a waterfowl guide from Springville, Tenn., met me for supper. Mason told me that during the past 33 years -- not counting Christmases -- he had missed only 28 days of duck hunting. By any standards, it is hardcore duck hunting. Local knowledge counts for a lot in any kind of hunting, and he certainly possessed it.

"What we are getting from my blind on the Tennessee River are gadwalls, mallards and pintails, with a few divers, along with an occasional goose," he said. "This year we took some snow geese out of the blind, which was a first."

Like all hunting, the guide said he had variable results depending on the weather.

"Since the blind is on the river, our best shooting is in cold weather when the ponds in the bottoms freeze and we have enough wind to move ducks," Mason said. "Still days are not as good, and the ducks do not fly well in heavy rain."

Mason said his groups of hunters sometimes have 30-duck days, but seven to eight ducks was the normal count. "Of course, that also depends on how well people shoot."

His comment might have been intended for me, because I would be using a single-shot muzzleloading shotgun. I assured him the gun, a Knight TK-2000, which I loaded with 95 grains of Hodgdon's Triple Seven powder and 11⁄4-ounce of No. 4 Hevi-Shot, would get the job done. If Mason was a skeptic, his son, Tyler, was even more so and opined that he wanted a multi-shot gun to have the opportunity to take more than one bird out of a flock.