{"id":2694,"date":"2016-10-26T23:54:05","date_gmt":"2016-10-26T23:54:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/insurancesalescoach.com\/?p=2694"},"modified":"2024-06-04T12:04:02","modified_gmt":"2024-06-04T12:04:02","slug":"fs-classics-bo-whoop-comes-home-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/insurancesalescoach.com\/index.php\/2016\/10\/26\/fs-classics-bo-whoop-comes-home-11\/","title":{"rendered":"F&S Classics: Bo Whoop Comes Home"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"Duck<\/p>\n
\"Join<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

The mallards<\/a> catch us at midmorning, when our guts are growling and our guard is down. Typical of late-season ducks, the pair is within gun range before anyone notices them. Someone in the blind hisses “ducks” with the urgent tone that voids all gentlemen’s rules of calling the shot. I grab and shoulder the gun leaning up next to me. It’s not your typical duck gun. It’s a big double, a 90-year-old HE-grade Super Fox with stamped barrels. The right one reads MADE FOR NASH BUCKINGHAM; the left, BY BURT BECKER PHILA, PA. I pull the front trigger, and the gun’s report ripples through the green cypress and button willows. From here, it sounds like any other 12-gauge. But the guys at camp a quarter mile away later say they heard something different\u2014a distinct, two-note report that they swear sounds just like it does in the legends: bo-whoop<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"Bo
Nash Buckingham\u2019s legendary gun, Bo Whoop, brought down a few more ducks during a hunt last winter. Nathaniel Welch<\/i><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Lost and Found<\/h2>\n

Tunica County, Miss., has changed a lot since Nash Buckingham\u2019s day. U.S. Highway 61 South long ago replaced the railroad and Limb Dodger as the primary mode of transportation for sportsmen traveling from Memphis to Tunica. The thickets full of quail are mostly gone, replaced by laser-leveled cotton and soybean fields. A strip of failing casinos sits on the banks of the Mississippi River, skeletons of promised economic progress in a region that consistently ranks among the country\u2019s poorest. Yet, the iconic Blue and White Restaurant is still here. It still opens before sunup and it\u2019s still where many duck hunters like to eat breakfast, just as Buckingham did. And if you jump in a boat and motor a few hundred yards into the cypress trees of Beaver Dam Lake, you\u2019ll see a world that hasn\u2019t changed since Buckingham\u2019s day\u2014a world the ducks still haunt every winter.<\/p>\n

Most Southern duck hunters know something of Buckingham, arguably the most celebrated wingshooting writer in history. His adventures were immortalized in seven books\u2014\u200bmost famously De Shootinest Gent’man and Other Tales<\/a><\/em>\u2014and countless articles, including many in Field & Stream<\/em>, where Buckingham was a regular contributor and, for a short stint, associate editor.<\/p>\n

Yet, perhaps more famous than the man himself is his gun\u2014the double-barrel Super Fox nicknamed Bo Whoop, due to the sound of its report at a distance. Bo Whoop was built by renowned gunsmith Burt Becker, choked Full and Full, and it was designed for the hot new duck load of the day, Western Cartridge Co.\u2019s Super-X 3-inch load of No. 4 lead shot. With that shell, Bo Whoop reportedly produced a 90 percent pattern at 40 yards, and Buckingham\u2019s ability to hit the \u201chigh birds,\u201d as he described them, with the combo was legendary. Bo Whoop was a key character in many of his stories.<\/p>\n

\"Beaver
The blind at Beaver Dam Lake. Nathaniel Welch<\/i><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Then, in 1948, after a morning of hunting in Arkansas, Bo Whoop was lost. As the story goes, Buckingham and his friend Clifford Green were checked by a couple of game wardens, one of whom asked to see the famous \u201cbig gun.\u201d Buckingham obliged, and at some point, the gun was set on the car fender. The hunters and officers then parted ways, and only after Buckingham and Green had driven a few miles down the road did they realize they\u2019d left the gun on the fender. By the time they returned to get it, Bo Whoop was gone. Buckingham would never see his gun again.<\/p>\n

The mystery of the gun\u2019s disappearance only fueled its legend and bolstered Bo Whoop\u2019s fame. Speculation and rumors surrounded its whereabouts for years. We do know that it was \u201cfound\u201d in 2005, when an anonymous owner carried it into Darlington Gun Works in South Caro\u00adlina to commission a replacement stock for the cracked original. The shop\u2019s owner, Jim Kelly, recognized the gun for what it was and contacted a historian with A.H. Fox, who verified it. Kelly told the owner what he had, and offered $20,000 for the gun on the spot. The owner declined, and Kelly replaced the stock.<\/p>\n

A few years later, the owner put the gun up for auction, and Bo Whoop was purchased for $201,250, including auction fees, by Hal Howard Jr., Buckingham\u2019s godson. Howard then donated the gun to Ducks Unlimited<\/a>, and it\u2019s been on display at DU\u2019s national headquarters in Memphis, Buckingham\u2019s hometown, since 2010. The only better place for the gun to be is in a duck blind\u2014which gave me an idea.<\/p>\n

Last summer, I called a friend at DU and said what a story it would be if we took Bo Whoop back to Beaver Dam Lake for a hunt. After some discussion, the DU staff decided that\u2019s just what Buckingham would\u2019ve wanted.<\/p>\n

\"bo
Bo Whoop back in action on late-season mallards. Nathaniel Welch<\/i><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Good to Go<\/h2>\n

Reality began to set in once we were planning the hunt: I\u2019d be the first writer since Buckingham to shoot Bo Whoop since it was lost\u2014and I\u2019d be shooting on Buckingham\u2019s home lake to boot. One night I had a dream that I dropped the gun\u2014with a value higher than my house\u2014into the mud. I felt more than a little pressure to kill a duck with it, too.<\/p>\n

Before we actually hunted with Bo Whoop, the big gun\u2019s condition had to be evaluated by a gunsmith. After all, Buckingham fired a lot of magnum loads through it; that, and the gun is 90 years old. The DU staff took it back to Jim Kelly, who inspected the gun and deemed it mechanically sound. Because the old lead load for which Bo Whoop was designed isn\u2019t an option these days, we opted for a 23\u20444-inch, 11\u20444-ounce load of Kent Tungsten Matrix No. 5s, a safe alternative to steel shot in antique double guns.<\/p>\n

With the gun no longer a safety concern, we got serious about the hunt. It would take place in late January, near the end of the 2015\u201316 Mississippi duck season. Mike and Lamar Boyd, the father-son staff of Beaver Dam Hunting Services (beaverdamducks.com), would be our hosts. Their primary blind is in the Clover Leaf Hole, a large brake in the ancient cypress trees that was referenced on occasion in Buckingham\u2019s writings about Beaver Dam. DU\u2019s Dale Hall, Steve Maritz, Rogers Hoyt, and Hunter Shepard would be hunting with me as well. Now we just needed cooperative ducks.<\/p>\n

\"bo
The author admires a specklebelly goose, the first bird he shot with Bo Whoop. Nathaniel Welch<\/i><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Deadly as Ever<\/h2>\n

The morning is mostly clear and cold with a stiff breeze. The gray ducks are stirring early, and within minutes of legal light, two of them set wings and drop into the decoys. Maritz shoulders Bo Whoop and knocks them both down. It\u2019s fitting, not only because gadwalls are a staple duck in sleepy Southern cypress brakes, but because it\u2019s a clean double. Buckingham wrote many things about Bo Whoop\u2014but he rarely mentioned missing. Maritz passes the big gun to Hoyt, who doesn\u2019t hold it long before three more gadwalls bomb the spread. He kills two of the birds with his first barrel, and he follows the third as it scrambles skyward. When the gadwall is about treetop high, the gun roars again and the third duck plops into the water.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo misses in that gun!\u201d Hoyt says.<\/p>\n

He cracks the breech and hands the gun to me. I fish two shells from the open box and close the gun with a crisp click. Bo Whoop lacks a mechanical safety, a feature Buckingham rejected because, as he saw it, a safety bred carelessness. I can tell you that the lack of one agitates restless nerves. I hold the gun at low ready, barrels pointed outside the blind, waiting for my opportunity.<\/p>\n

My first chance is at a white-fronted goose. Lamar works the bird for several passes before I finally take a high overhead shot, some 50 yards up. The goose wilts but keeps moving, so I fire the second barrel. The bird sails into the timber behind the blind and requires a couple of follow-up shots. It\u2019s not the cleanest kill, but it\u2019s a high bird with Bo Whoop, and a gorgeous speck at that. I pop the smoking hulls out of the gun\u2014keepsakes\u2014and admire the black barring on the goose\u2019s chest. I sip coffee with trembling hands.<\/p>\n

The gun is passed on to the next man. I\u2019ve hunted with skilled shooters in every flyway, most of them armed with synthetic-stocked autoloaders. I don\u2019t know that I\u2019ve ever seen ducks killed with more efficiency than they are with Bo Whoop. Mike and Lamar each drop gadwalls with single barrels. Before long, we\u2019re just duck hunting, taking turns shooting, laughing, and having a hell of a time. My anxiety over the $200K piece fades, replaced with the more familiar don\u2019t-miss-in-front-of-your-buddies pressure.<\/p>\n

Perhaps it\u2019s that pressure that makes each of us concentrate all the more carefully on not missing. Perhaps we\u2019re experiencing firsthand the capabilities of a custom-built piece from a bygone era of craftsmanship. Or perhaps the gun is magic. Regardless, I watch six men of different builds and experiences, men who\u2019ve never before fired Bo Whoop at so much as a tin can, pick it up and mechanically drop one duck after another. No one gets too spiritual, but all of us are leaning toward magic.<\/p>\n

\"bo
Empties in Bo Whoop. Nathaniel Welch<\/i><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Green Machine<\/h2>\n

Dale Hall, the CEO of DU, is adamant that everyone in the blind gets a bird with Bo Whoop before he picks it up himself. By late morning, he\u2019s finally holding the gun but scanning empty skies. The hot flight has slowed to a trickle.<\/p>\n

After two hours, Hall rests the big gun against a barrel rack in the Boyds\u2019 blind and steps down into the boat hide for a quick break. That\u2019s when the two mallards drop in. They\u2019re 30 yards out when we see them, and when I shoulder the big gun, the drake is closer still, backpedaling and oblivious. A man could not ask for a more perfect duck, and I would rather not disappoint the ghost of Nash Buckingham by missing. I press the front trigger. Bo-whoop. The greenhead falls with a splash, an orange leg kicking. I have another barrel left, but I let the hen fly out without using it.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s little to explain, what with the smoking hull in one hand and dead greenhead in the other: I\u2019ve just killed Hall\u2019s duck. He only smiles and shakes my hand; there\u2019s a light bloodstain around my thumbnail. \u201cThat is a beautiful bird,\u201d Hall says.<\/p>\n

Buckingham wrote a lot about good guns and great shooting, but a more frequent theme was good company. That we have good company here seems to make all the difference in our success. My duck heralds a flurry of late-morning mallards, and a few minutes later, Hall shoots a greenhead with Bo Whoop.<\/p>\n

\"bo
The author shoulders the big gun. Nathaniel Welch<\/i><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A Timeless Tool<\/h2>\n

As we glide through weaving aisles I calculate that I have dropped ducks on well nigh every square yard of this time-worn shooting ground. We have shared\u2014still share\u2014glorious years. The two of us are still hard at it. The reason? Because it has been left as it was. Because of sporting unselfishness and pride in its maintenance.<\/em>\u2014Nash Buckingham, “What Rarer Day,” Field & Stream<\/em>, Nov. 1931<\/p>\n

To a nonhunter, it might seem strange that a tool so notoriously lethal on ducks is so closely tied to one of the earliest advocates of waterfowl conservation. Buckingham told great stories, but more than that he used his platforms and voice to speak out against unregulated hunting and habitat destruction at a time when they presented a virtually unopposed threat to the resource. He\u2019s owed no small credit for the conservation awakening of the early 1900s that led to such notable things as the Migratory Bird Hunting Stamp Act and the founding of DU.<\/p>\n

Of course, what a shotgun can represent for conservation makes perfect sense to a duck hunter. Because of sporting unselfishness and pride in maintenance, there are still mallards to be found on Southern cypress brakes like those on Beaver Dam Lake\u2014and, for that matter, healthy numbers of ducks to be hunted and enjoyed in every flyway. There are still friendships to be made in blinds. There are still a few great old guns around to help tell the stories of then and now.<\/p>\n

This story was originally published in October 2016.<\/em><\/p>\n

The post F&S Classics: Bo Whoop Comes Home<\/a> appeared first on Field & Stream<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The mallards catch us at midmorning, when our guts are growling and our guard is down. Typical of late-season ducks, the pair is within gun range before anyone notices them. Someone in the blind hisses “ducks” with the urgent tone that voids all gentlemen’s rules of calling the shot. I grab and shoulder the gun…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":580,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/insurancesalescoach.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2694"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/insurancesalescoach.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/insurancesalescoach.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insurancesalescoach.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insurancesalescoach.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2694"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/insurancesalescoach.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2694\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2697,"href":"https:\/\/insurancesalescoach.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2694\/revisions\/2697"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insurancesalescoach.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/insurancesalescoach.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insurancesalescoach.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insurancesalescoach.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}