Coastal Waterfowling at the St. Charles Bay Hunting Club
For years I have seen the historic St. Charles Bay Hunting Club while fishing and hunting in the Rockport, Texas area. If you have ever been to Goose Island State Park, then you were not very far from its campus overlooking its namesake bay. For nearly one hundred years, the club has played host to outdoorsmen who came to the mid-coast to enjoy some of the best waterfowl hunting and fishing the state has to offer. And, despite the growth of the surrounding area, it has managed to hang on, keeping its charm and traditions alive and well.
As a private club, its members have maintained a low profile away from the hustle of the once quaint town of Rockport/Fulton. Not much has changed about the club’s buildings except some modernizing of the maintenance and storage facilities. Upon arriving, you are assigned a room in one of the half dozen or so cabins, each having comfortable and clean beds and bathrooms. The cabins have a small front porch in which to hang things or hang out and enjoy the view of the bay. In the center of all this, is a main lodge with all the things needed to make this the perfect “man spa” but comfortable enough for the wives and kids. It is here where we start our evening with a home cooked dinner in the dinning room. Afterwards, we slip off to the lounge for some conversation and adult beverages. It was late in the evening when we made our way back to our cabin for some sleep. The 4:00 AM wake-up call is an early one but some of the younger die-hards give the trout a hard time under the lights on the pier before giving into the urge to rest. When the morning knock comes at the door, its back over to the main lodge for a hot breakfast and coffee and back to the cabin again to get ready for the air-boat ride out to the blinds.
It felt good to be back on an air-boat. Duck hunting the coast and air-boats seem to go hand in hand. As a teenager, one of my first waterfowling trips was from an air-boat near Matagorda and I was hooked ever since. Gliding over grass flats and oyster reefs and getting way back into the marsh where you could never get with a bay boat makes you feel like you are almost cheating. This morning’s ride lasts about thirty minutes as we hug the shorelines and shallows out to the barrier island known as St. Joseph Island. The boat pulls up to a wood blind with thick bay leaf brushing and there are three dozen decoys already sitting in the water. I am reminded of a picture by one of my favorite artists, John Cowan, as I survey the scene. Cowan notes the benefits of using bay leafs for blind brushing as they are perfectly suited for the task. After unloading, we send the boat on its way and await shooting time. A few minutes before, we load up our steel shot and wait for the show to begin.
Today’s weather is cool and windy out of the north. And, it did not take long for the first ducks, a group of Wigeon, to make their way into the decoys and we dispatched two from the group. Soon after a large flight of green-winged teal sneak in from behind us and somehow we overcame our being startled and took five in a quick volley. The end of the day had us with Teal, Wigeon and a few obligatory Shovelers on our straps. Although we saw plenty of Pintail, we did not have them come in close enough to make them our “hunters-choice” ducks.
Despite a full-limit hunt for our three man party, my favorite part of the trip was the boat ride home. With the boat hugging the shoreline, I looked out ahead and as far as the eye could see were rafting waterfowl. As our less than stealthy craft approached, the sky turned dark with ducks of all species trying to escape the sudden interruption of their feeding time. It was good to see their numbers out in force and a reminder that all of the banquet dollars that I personally have contributed to their health was paying off. The Texas coast is changing and attracting more people. But, its always refreshing to see some things stay the same like traditional duck hunting lodges, hunting friends, bay-leaf blinds, air boats and miles of rafting ducks!
