Duck hunters rescued after 13 hours in a tree 🥶

I’m currently at the “it’s Thursday already?” phase of the workweek and am unsure as to whether or not that is a good thing as of yet. For those of you who have also made it through, a pat on the back is deserved.

With that in mind, let’s all take a minute to grab a coffee or whiskey (no judgement) and get this Thursday morning dispatch out the door.

Here's what's worth reading about today:

• Frigid rescue - Two Louisiana hunters rescued in harrowing incident 🥶

• Money in the bank - USFWS announces another $1.3 billion for conservation 💰

• Nebraska cats - 8th annual lion hunt ends early as hunters punch their tags 🐈

• Snow day!- These boys in southern Louisiana are having a time 🐊

MEN BEING MEN
DUCK HUNTERS LEFT CLINGING TO TREES FOR 13 HOURS AFTER THEIR BOAT SINKS IN SUB-ZERO WATERS

When it comes to being resourceful, a pair of seasoned Louisiana duck hunters have proven themselves worthy of such a title after a harrowing duck hunting incident. According to a Facebook post by Texas Game Wardens last week, two Louisiana men set out to chase ducks on Bois D’arc Lake, not far from their home. With cold temperatures plaguing the area, the two were dressed for the weather, but not for what they were unknowingly about to encounter. 

Traversing the frigid lake, the duck hunter’s boat struck a tree and suddenly began to take on water. According to game wardens, by noon the two men’s boat had been completely submerged in the icy lake, leaving the two duck hunters to scramble up into some nearby trees in an attempt to stay dry…

💰 Hunting helps generate $1.3 billion (with a B) for conservation. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced last week that they are set to dole out over $1.3 billion in apportionments to support states, commonwealths and territories in their efforts to fund conservation. As hunters and sport shooters, it’s an announcement we all ought to be proud of as every dollar was provided by excise taxes paid by hunters, anglers, shooters and boat owners over the course of 2024.

Approximately $914,000,000 of the $1.3billion total is derived from the Pittman-Robertson Act - an 11 percent tax placed on guns, ammo and archery equipment. The remaining balance of the total was provided by excise taxes on fishing equipment and fuel for motorboat engines by ways of the Dingell-Johnson Act. With over $29 billion raised since the program’s inception back in 1937, these strategic excise taxes represent one of the most effective conservation tools in the world.

🐈 Nebraska’s 8th annual mountain lion ends successfully as limits are met early. Nebraska’s 2025 mountain lion hunt is officially in the books after hunters tripped the state’s annual harvest limits last week. According to Game and Parks officials, the hunt ended Sunday after the limit on female cats was met in the Pine Ridge hunt area. Overall one male and six females were harvested in the Pine Ridge Unit and regulations require the unit to close once the annual harvest limit of 12 mountain lions — or sublimit of six females — is reached. The additional two units also met their harvest limits Jan. 2 and 5 respectively.

Game and Parks officials noted that snowfall made for excellent tracking conditions and helped shorten the overall season successfully for hunters across the state’s hunt areas. 

🐊 Those boys in southern Louisiana are wild’n out and we’re all here for it. Watch as these boys run an airboat in the snow and make me jealous all the while. Stay safe out there, fellas!

🦌 The Story of ‘Stickers’: On Oct. 3, 2023, Landyn got a daytime trail-camera photo of a buck bigger than anything the Charles’ had ever seen in their neck of the woods. The buck had already shed its velvet and sported a rack replete with extra tines, superb width and unholy mass. It was apparent from the shape of the rack and the “stickers” jutting out and back that this was the same deer Logan had encountered a year earlier—but it’d exploded in size. The buck became a regular on their favorite property, and soon dominated the family’s hunting strategy for the fall. Landyn became obsessed, and thanks to his savings account and single marital status, made the choice to quit his job and dedicate his entire season to hunting one buck: the deer they named Stickers.  Read the full story.

🦅. Eat, Prey, Love: A Day with the Squirrel Hawkers of East Texas: Of  all the red-tailed hawks that have ever soared on a Texas breeze, only one gets to live in Charlie Alvis’s house, at least during the winter hunting season. “My bird has its own bedroom,” said Alvis, a falconer who’s based in the unincorporated community of Porter, just beyond the northern outskirts of Houston. “When I come home at night, that bird comes in the living room with me. We socialize for hours at a time.”

The 43-year-old Alvis, who’s temporarily living in Brownwood, in Central Texas, for work, is long and lean and sports a gray beard. His five-year-old hawk has a golden chest, dark wings, a fan of reddish tail feathers, and, often, a murderous glare in her eyes. Alvis acquired the bird from a falconer in Georgia more than two years ago. He named her Calypso but doesn’t use it. There’s no point, he told me. Hawks respond to whistles and bloody snacks, not noms de guerre. Read the full story.

🐈 The Surly Life of Jeremiah Johnson:  The best-known tale (and how he got his nickname) centers on his quest for vengeance. Legend has it that Johnston married the Swan, daughter of a Flathead Chief. Johnston left his bride and unborn child behind one winter to trap and returned to find them murdered by the Crow. He went on to kill dozens of Crow warriors, carving out and eating the livers of his foes. When the Blackfeet captured him for the bounty the Crow had put on his head, he chewed through his rawhide handcuffs, beat up a guard, cut off the guard’s leg and used it as trail mix on his long road to vengeance.

Then again, some documents reveal Johnston was still serving in the Navy when his revenge took place. Either way, we do know he moved to Coulson, Montana (now Billings) to work as a deputy sheriff. He built a cabin in the woods near Red Lodge to live out all but the last year of his life. He died in 1900 at the National Soldier’s Home in Santa Monica, California.  Read the full story.

Oh, and one more thing…