Page 19 - 2020 Jan/Feb Outdoor Oklahoma

During the drive home from Hackberry,
the men began talking about the birds
listed on the HIP. Each had already taken
ducks, geese, coots, snipes, rails and doves.
It was then they decided to make it their
goal to be able to check every category on
the survey, and what they needed was gal-
linule and woodcock. “We started calling it
the HIP quest or the goony bird slam.”
Next on the list was gallinule, but the
timing wasn’t right and they had to wait
until 2016. With tips from the biologist at
Red Slough WMA, the hunters drove near-
ly four hours to the public hunting area
that seems out of place in Oklahoma. They
encountered fire ants, angry wasps, cot-
tonmouths and alligators. But within 15
minutes, each of them had bagged a com-
mon gallinule, Mackey said.
“So we got the rails, got the snipe, got “Honestly I was starting to think
the gallinules. We were still kind of in dis-
belief that we’d done it and fairly easily maybe the woodcock just wasn’t
to that point. And then came the wood-
cock. And that’s when things kind of really going to be.
slowed down.”
Don P. brown/oDwc

Aaron Milligan and Anthony Mackey wait in the duck blind hoping to wrap up their quest by bagging a goose. This hunt turned out to be an
unsuccessful goose chase.
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