Hundreds of wildfowlers have left their mark on the history of wildfowling on the Atlantic coast after having given us many historical narratives, but one family, the Cobb family, stands out as having left us with their everlasting narratives and most of all with their decoy carvings, which set the trend at the time and which were intended to document waterfowl and shorebird behavior.

The story of the Cobbs is a great American tale about uprooting oneself and family, finding a new home, and through sheer determination and perseverance, through tragedy and setbacks, ultimately thriving in a new place. The Cobbs took a big, empty sandbar and created a vibrant working community for nearly 100 years. So, perhaps it is time to re-introduce them and tell their story.

It was an extraordinary, exceptional paradisetucked away in the super-funnel of the Mississippi Flyway that Wild Acres cameto represent and often described in newspapers and hunting lore as the“Paradise of Duckdom.” Here, year after year, gravel-throated voyagers, migratingdown from the north, interrupted their journey to linger on Wallace Claypool’s 1,350acres of greentree reservoir, where they fed in the nearby rice fields andfeed-filled sloughs, rivers, marshes, bayous, and lakes along with feeding onacorns in his greentree-timberedarea.

Wallace Claypool was a firm believer inphysical fitness, exercising every day. He could perform stunts of strength thatamazed younger men. Golfwas his game back in the 1920s. Then in 1925, he ventured into a sport thatwould lead him to receivenational recognition as a conservationist. He was famously quoted as saying that “if thewild duck is to avoid the fate of the passenger pigeon, somebody must furnishit with food, water, and a place to rest.”

Claypool acquired 5,000 acres in 1942 by forfeiture from the state due to unpaid taxes, by Quitclaim Deeds from two Drainage Districts, and from two differentindividuals. He immediately built a 1,350-acre reservoir, 800 of which would be under watercontrolled by levees once completed in 1943. After 1943, the duck population increasedsteadily to about 200,000 ducks.

The duck season of 1949 would be a banner year for Wild Acres asessentially everything was dry with no water in the overflow areas. From 1945 onward until the drought years began in1959, which lasted through the first half of the 1960s when hunting on WildAcres was limited to hunting only two during the week, Wild Acres’ duckpopulation ranged from 250,000 to half a million. It was a spectacle like noother, bewildering wildlife biologists who traveled to Wild Acres to observe.Even as late as December 8, 1960, newspapers such as the Fort Worth StarTelegram were still calling it the “New Duck Capital of the World."

For it washere at Wild Acres that hungry hordes gathered in tremendous numbers in thelow, lush wintering grounds. It was here where the hunting was the very best, whenthe walnut stock was sweat-wet against the hunter’s cheek.

To some, Reelfoot Lake,nestled in the far northwestern corner of Tennessee, was known as the “Paradiseof Sportsmen.” Others referred to it as the “Eighth Wonder of the World,” whileWalt Disney called it “Mystery Lake.” But most referred to it as the“Chesapeake Bay of the South.” With wintery winds sweeping from the north overthe broad breast of the Mississippi River, it looked, at times, like all theducks of North America had gathered to feast along its shallowbanks.

After having beenthe home to mankind for more than 12,000 years, Reelfoot became the most-usedaerial highway of migratory waterfowl during the spring and autumn—ducks,geese, swans, sandhill cranes, and shorebirds. Historically, in its early years, the lake wasmost famous for the canvasback which was often referred to as the "King ofDucks,” as their flight through the lower-middle Mississippi Valley saw themain body stop at Reelfoot where wild celery grew.

To many, it would become the eighth wonder of the world. It is not an official designation but a reflection on the awe inspiring, spectacular natural phenomenon and wonder that covered the sky with billions of pigeons, but it wouldn’t last, as billions dwindled to millions, to thousands, to one, then to extinction. Sadly, this spectacle was lost forever, driven to extinction in a matter of a few decades, going from billions to zero in a span of less than 50 years.

For 50,000 years or more, wild passenger pigeons traveled the skyways inincredible numbers that seem unimaginable to us today. When the Old-World people began arriving, millions of pigeons saturated the skies. Over the interveningyears, European and settler invaders were immensely ecstatic and teeming withextraordinary admiration as they witnessed this unique innate beauty of the grandest and most unique natural phenomenon in the history of the world.

The question must be asked, “Will the canvasback or can the canvasback ever recover and occurin numbers that would allow no closed seasons?”

It is doubtful, and if it does it will be through dedicated restoration efforts by transplanting and sowingthe seeds of wild celery, wapato, and a plant I haven’t mentioned for canvasbacks, the pondweed. In doing so, many depleted ducking wetlands can be restored and thus new ducking grounds can be created.

E64 LISTS 17 OF THE EARLIEST DUCK CLUBS IN AMERICA, ALL ORGANIZED BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR, SOME OF THE MOST FAMOUS DUCK CLUBS SUCH AS WINOUS POINT, CURRITUCK SHOOTING CLUB AND MORE.

The evolution of the duck call began some 45,000 to 50,000 years ago or earlier and this episode takes you from that time frame up until E16 which was starts in 1854.

Year after year, waterfowl have followed the ancestral Mississippi Flywayand made their usual stops, where along the way they feasted abundantly in theforested White River bottomlands on acres of high-energy pinoak acorns andaquatic plants, like wild millet, Chufa, and smartweed.

Before rice production came to the Grand Prairie,ducks were found foraging in the small prairie wetlands, seasonal herbaceouswetlands, the vast flooded bottomland, hardwood forests of the White andArkansas Rivers, and other smaller meandering rivers and bayous.

Once rice had been plantedfor the first time in the first decade of the twentieth century in theeast-central part of the state, it spread rapidly throughout the Grand Prairie,mainly in the counties of Arkansas and Prairie and small sections in westernMonroe and eastern Lonoke during that decade and especially during the 1920sand the 1930s. Doing so, prairie lands, bounded by the bottomlands of four streams, the White andArkansas Rivers, Bayou Meto, and Wattensaw Bayou, could not exist and was converted tofarmland, so the prairies essentially vanished after 40 years.

Rice changed the flyway intwo ways. For one, it moved a lot of the waterfowl migration from theMississippi River westward to the rice-growing regions of Arkansas. Second, italso shifted lots of waterfowl from overflying Arkansas and going to the ricefields of Louisiana. No place in the Grand Prairie of eastern Arkansas prior tothe construction of reservoirs reaped rice’s benefit more so than the twinlakes of Jacob’s Lake and Pecan Lake in Arkansas County.