John K. Flores: Taking care of family business as teal season opens
Dillon Delaney, a 34-year-old waterfowl guide and outfitter, nervously stood just outside one end of a long, well-made blind placed on a rice field levee near Klondike, this past Monday afternoon. Inside was a long bench, where six hunters sat waiting — hoping — teal would soon be flying.
The Louisiana early teal season had opened over the weekend. What’s more, Delaney and his hunters had been slamming them both morning and afternoon the previous two days.
According to Delaney, he ran 11 blinds on opening morning that averaged 30 to 40 teal per blind; something Southwest Louisiana is known for most years.
Delaney, who’s been guiding since he was 17, said, “Teal season in Louisiana is pretty much ‘our’ duck season. What I mean by that is people come from all over the United States to hunt teal here.”
“We’re known for teal,” Delaney continued, “But, Winnie, Texas, Katy, Texas, Southwest Louisiana, South Louisiana, that’s where you teal hunt. That’s where you kill numbers. There’s not a lot of places you can go and kill a 9-man limit in 45 minutes. Southwest Louisiana is one of them.”
We arrived and set up in the blind at 4:30 p.m. and anticipated steady shooting to start around 5-5:15 p.m., but time was ticking off the clock and it was now past 6 p.m. With sunset at 7:15 p.m., it was getting late. Boredom was starting to settle in the blind as some of the hunters’ heads were bent down looking at smart phones.
Delaney mentioned that most of the outfitters around the area don’t like to hunt the afternoons, but the fields he hunts don’t tend to hold teal throughout the day.
In the dark, on the way to their blinds for morning hunts, Delaney noted how they’d jump thousands of teal that had been feeding all night in the rice fields with the full moon this past week. He says they leave in the morning and fly to the marsh where they preen and rest during the day. Noting this pattern, Delaney says the afternoon hunts had been very productive.
With nothing happening, Delaney stepped out of the blind and took a few calls, while never taking his eyes off the sky looking for birds.
Delaney said, “Guiding can be tough. I’ve guided in bad years and it’s probably the most stressful thing I’ve ever done. You’re trying to keep people happy and when they’re not pulling the trigger it can be difficult, because it’s a business. Not only are you bringing people hunting, but you’re also accepting money from them. So, if they’re not killing, it’s harder to keep them interested.”
When Delaney sat down again, I rhetorically said to him, “You know what’s going to happen here? It’s going to get down to that last half hour of legal shooting light and it’s going to be crazy.”
Delaney, who was born and raised in Sulfur, is married and he and his wife have seven children ranging in age from one month to 15 years old. He guides six months out of the year starting with teal in September and ending with snow goose conservation hunts in Arkansas in April.
Delaney says they travel from state to state and lodge to lodge as a family. His wife, Marina, home schools the children, and helps with bookkeeping, taking client calls, and often helps cook and clean at the various lodges they guide for.
Delaney said, “She loves it. She loves the lifestyle and meeting new people and the visiting. And the coolest thing about it is we get to do it with our kids. My kids are hunters, but I’m praying that they become doctors and lawyers, but I got a feeling two or three of them are going to be hunting guides.”
Delaney’s deceased father was also a hunting guide for 27 years and is the person who he attributes receiving his skills as an outfitter from.
Delaney laughingly said, “He wanted me to become a doctor or lawyer too, but I didn’t have a chance. I was born to be a guide, I guess, cause my dad gave me a duck call before I had a pacifier. He pushed me and I was competition calling at 7 years old.”
Delaney says he comes from a rodeo family and his family also rodeos. During the offseason when they return to their home in Holmwood, just northeast of Lake Charles, their kids participate in rodeo activities throughout the summer until September rolls around and it’s time to hunt again.
When 6:35 p.m. came around teal started to move, but they wouldn’t work like Delaney wanted them to. The teal wouldn’t commit to the decoy spread and instead flew past the blind like fighter jets strafing a field.
Delaney instructed one of his other guides to reposition the robo-duck decoys, but it was to no avail. That’s when Delaney simply said, “Fellas, I’m sorry, but we’re just going to have to shoot ’em on the pass, it’s the best I think we can do under the circumstances.”
So, we did, and over the course of the next 40 minutes of legal shooting light, managed to harvest 22 blue-winged teal. Not bad for an afternoon hunt.
Teal season runs through Sept. 29. For those interested in booking a hunt with Delaney, he can be contacted at 337-581-2274.
John Flores is the Morgan City Review’s outdoor writer. He can be contacted at gowiththeflo@cox.net.