The Kankakee Duck Hunt - A True Story

The Kankakee Duck Hunt

Although 1 have fought the waves on many a stormy rainy day, and have been out in many severe storms on various occasions, one hunt in particular on the Kankakee lingers in my memory.

My brother Henry and myself left our home, Morris, Illinois, located on the Illinois River, early in December, with our destination being Kankakee Islands, a group of heavily wooded islands in the Kankakee River about a mile or so above its confluence with the Des Plaines. We had two 16-foot galvanized iron boats, forty duck decoys, plenty of ammunition, tent, blankets, and camp-stove for cooking on and to heat our tent. Also a hand-saw, for there is nothing so useful in preparing stove-wood.

Some of the other hunters warned us that it was pretty late in the season to go camping out, but we thought we should perhaps be able to return before the river should freeze up for the winter. The weather up to this time had been comparatively mild.

The first day we rowed ten miles up the Illinois to the junction of the Des Plaines and Kankakee Rivers, and then entering the Kankakee River, reached the islands where we were to camp in the middle of the afternoon. We were something over eleven miles from Morris. We did not hunt any that day, being content to put our tent up and lay in a supply of wood, of which there was plenty at hand. The Kankakee here flows through a prairie country and there was no timber except on the islands. The river here runs directly north and to the west of us for four or five miles was a vast prairie. About one mile from us in this prairie was located Goose Lake, a large lake surrounded by many smaller ponds, a famous resort of wild-fowl.

Ducks crossed back and forth from the Kankakee and also from the Des Plaines to this lake in vast flocks at night and returned to the rivers in the morning and I have been camping on the Des Plaines when the roar of their wings could be heard a quarter of a mile as flock after flock came down the Des Plaines from Joliet Lake to cross over to the Kankakee and thence to Goose Lake to spend the night. I greatly admire the wild ducks' powers of flight. They certainly "Go some ever they die," in the words of the Canadian lumber-jack, and when they put on the high speed, well, good-night! If you can stop a single green-wing teal coming with the wind, you are then qualified to be called a marksman.

We decided to remain on the river at Kankakee Islands as the big freeze might come at any time, and we might have trouble in reaching home.

The next morning was cold and cloudy with a slight wind blowing, but there seemed something ominous in the air, as though a storm were impending. My brother set out one-half of our wooden decoys (about twenty) at the extreme lower point of the largest island, and I set out the other half a short distance above him between the two largest islands.

There did not seem to be many ducks on the wing until, early in the afternoon, the wind increased very strongly and it began to snow and blow harder a gale from the northwest. In fact, it was the beginning of a blizzard.

By 3 o'clock large flocks of mallards would come over the great oak trees on the island, hurried along by the wind and falling snow, and as they would catch sight of my decoys in the sheltered place between the islands, would close their wings nearly to their bodies and literally coast through the air with a rush down over my decoys. They seemed to know that this was no ordinary storm. Had they not been driven from Saskatchewan and Alberta in British Columbia in September by ice and cold; from Minnesota and Wisconsin to Illinois and Iowa in October and November, and now this meant to them to make a flight to Reelfoot Lake in Tennessee or the bayous of the Mississippi over night!

There would be the sound of whizzing, rushing wings, a puff of smoke, a dull boom of the gun and a fat mallard would drop, another puff of smoke, another boom, and another one would drop.

By 4 o'clock, when I had shot nearly twenty mallards, I had great difficulty in getting back to the island each time I would go out to retrieve my fallen birds, as the snow was floating down the river several inches deep and was becoming coated with a crust of ice on top and every few minutes would carry some of my decoys away. Those nearest shore were in a little eddy and were not affected by the ice so much.

After a few parting shots, for I knew I would get no more opportunities until the following Spring, and as it was fast becoming dark, about 4:30 I decided to return to camp, and after taking up the few decoys still on the water, I rowed my boat to shore and turned it over on the bank with the decoys under it. I had twenty-six fine mallards.

My brother had returned to camp before me with about twenty mallards and after making things snug in the tent, we were about to retire.

Just then a spark from our stove caught fire to our tent, but we extinguished it before it had burned the tent very much and patched the hole up with a flour sack.

The next morning was clear and cold, with the thermometer well below zero. We started to walk across the island when my brother looked at me and said: "Your ears are white. They are frozen!" "Yours are too!" I told him, as soon as I glanced at him. We rubbed them briskly to take the frost out.

What a change in the appearance of the river from the day previous! Where we had rowed our boats the day before there was now a solid sheet of ice that would bear our weight. There were no ducks in sight. They had left for a warmer climate and where they could find open water and were probably hundreds of miles away.

We busied ourselves during the day in making a couple of sleds strong enough to hold our boats and outfit, as we knew that was the only way we could get home as the river was surely frozen over for the season.

The following morning we loaded the boats on the sleds and started on our homeward journey. After going a half mile we saw there was a narrow strip of water in the center of the river which was not frozen, as the current was swift here for several miles. So this time I've loaded the sleds into the boats and thought we would take a chance on getting out at the lower end of the open water, how far down the river it was we did not know. We went about three miles and found it extended no further and pulled our boats out on the ice again and resumed our journey. We had visions of La Sallp and his men crossing to the Illinois from Lake Michigan in the dead of winter and descending the Illinois to Peoria on the ice with their canoes on sledges.

When we reached Twin Islands, eight miles from Morris, we saw we would not be able to reach Morris with our entire equipment that day and so we left our boats turned over on the river bank with the decoys underneath them to return for them later. While we were arranging the boats a flock of prairie chickens flew over our heads in the straggling manner peculiar to them, and as a result of four shots fired at them, three prairie chickens fell.

We reached home with our guns and game about dusk, well satisfied with our trip. What a joy to the hunter to feel a pair of gun barrels in his hands, or do you use a pump!

Duck hunting numbers more devotees than any other branch of hunting small game, and no one with red blood can resist its lure once it has been experienced.

The hunter is seated in his blind and two distant reports of a shot-gun come floating down the wind to his ears, and nearly a mile away he sees a flock of black objects that resemble a swarm of bees headed toward him. They become larger and larger, weaving in and out and constantly shifting their positions in the flock. Soon he hears the roar of their wings as it drives their whizzing bodies through the air. Some speed there, boy! They see the decoys, begin to lower their flight, make several graceful circles, slacken up a trifle, there are two streams of fire pour from the muzzle of his gun, and a pair of birds fall one after tho other, as if thrown from a catapult.

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