EP 570. Sparkleberry Swamp Legend (Part 1)

Ramsey Russell: Welcome back to MOJO’s Duck Season Somewhere podcast where today we are going to a time and a place, the past, the present, maybe even the future over in South Carolina. We’re going to crawl into the vast Sparkleberry swamp and taking us on our tour today is Mr. Toy McCord who is regaled in local certain circles as fairly known a good bit about duck hunting. Mr. Toy, how are you today?

Toy McCord: Doing great right now.

Ramsey Russell: I’m proud to have you. And how old are you? And when’s the last time you was in a duck blind?

Toy McCord: Well, I’m 78 a couple weeks ago and the last day of season was the last day I duck hunted, but I wasn’t in a blind, I was in a standing by a little willow tree with some moss in it in Arkansas, last day of duck season.

Ramsey Russell: Yes, sir. You grew up hunting in South Carolina though, didn’t you?

Toy McCord: Certainly did.

Ramsey Russell: Growing up there around the Santee Cooper Lake. What are some of your earliest memories in the swamp? And when did you realize, at what moment did you realize that this duck hunting thing was going to become a lifelong passion?

Toy McCord: Well, early on I was I think 4 or 5 years old my dad was paddling me in Black River, he shot a wood duck down and he gave me a 22 riffle with scatter shot to try to shoot the crippled duck. Well, don’t say I never wanted that rifle again. And so right then I was in the swamp, I grew up with a man that hunted and fished all his life and I really got into it. And I’m telling you, I would study it, I’d read about it and I’d be playing ball if a drove a duck flew across, I watched the ducks while I was playing ball. And back in the day we had a pile of ducks. But I grew up in Black River Swamp and then Santee Cooper when it was first flooded. And I got to see that when it was not Sparkleberry, but the whole open lake was full of trees and stuff. We had thousands of ducks.

Ramsey Russell: Really? What year would that have been that they initially flooded that swamp?

Toy McCord: I’m thinking is in the 1950s, early 1950s, 1952 or 1953, somewhere in there –

Ramsey Russell: What was it like before then? What was it like before they did all that?

Toy McCord: Well, I don’t remember much there, but I do remember that we hunted ducks on the branches. And then when I say the branches, the little branch swamps and things like that. And we had a bunch and there was some ducks on the coast which I didn’t hunt then, but I never remember hunting – it must have been in the 1940s they flooded it because I remember when I was 8, 9, 10 years old, I was something in Lake Moultrie in potholes. They kept the lake low every year. And we were hunting out in potholes out in the middle of open flats. I mean, you just walk for an hour to get a little pothole and sit down. But we had tons of widget and gadwall along with some mallards and teal. But when they really flooded the swamp, think I was in 14, 15 years old when I was going up there. We would go up there and spend the night every Christmas, every Christmas we spend a night for about 3 days. And that’s when I said, where are all these ducks coming from? I’ve been on the open water for years hunting on Lake Marion, and I had never seen this. We sit there late in the evening, we’d see drove after drove come out of the Aiken ridges. I’m on the bottom end of them then and hadn’t gone in there. Then of course, I changed when I got about 14 and 15, when I was bulletproof, then I put my boat in at Sparkleberry or at Pax Landing and I just hit the swamp. Now when you get lost in the swamp, you remember that hole. So I’ve been lost a bunch of times up there, so I remember those places. And so now when I go back, I tell my son of who is with me, I spent a day right there, I spent a night over here. I said, I remember it now and I always remember then I tell them what to look for. I said, don’t look at that old dead tree, you look at that live tree, the top of it up there. Because when you get lost, you need to have something that’s going to still be there to get you in and out of these places. So I took that to heart too. But the swamps is different now than they used to be, but it’s because of the game. But we still have beautiful water and swamps and stuff in the branches.

Ramsey Russell: We’re going to talk about more about those changes later on. But were your people, were they duck hunters or were they just hunters? Like when you were going out with your daddy, were you all just hunting or did he specifically target ducks?

Toy McCord: No. I went with my daddy, he called the ducks that he was a duck hunter, he was a bass fisher, he was a deer hunter. He did all that. Now, but as far as you and I duck hunting now, he was not in the league of that. He used a little old PSO call for a $1.50, $2.50, which I use them to today, dropped them out and then I went big time and got a wooden call. But we use them. And I was just playing with the duck call one day and we were hunting and I was young boy, and I blew the thing and I swear that duck turn and come and try to light on me. And then I became a duck hunter and a duck caller. And I would rather the duck break his neck and light on me and not shoot him there. And I remember that more than I remember crumpling one here, shooting one there, whatever.

Ramsey Russell: Boy, I tell you what -?

Toy McCord: And when you get that way, then you love it.

Ramsey Russell: That’s right. That’s the thing about duck hunting. When I talk to people about their first duck or their earliest memories, Mr. Toy, they always talk about that first duck they had that relationship with that responded to something they did. And you never forget when that bird hooks and responds and locks his wings and starts setting out his landing gear and coming at you, it’s magical, it’s one of them moments you never ever forget.

Toy McCord: I remember the days of that when – and then when you shoot him and you cripple him, you run him a mile and a half to shoot him. I would run a cripple green wing deal for 30 minutes just to get him, because I like to have a beautiful green wing teal drake. We would do that. But watching them work is fantastic and I still love that at my age now. But I have so many people that have killed their first duck with me, and they got them on the walls and I tell them, always keep that.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Toy McCord: And you said something earlier when we were talking about the friendship that comes with the duck hunting stuff. I still got so many friends, strictly due to outdoor life and duck hunting.

Ramsey Russell: Absolutely.

Toy McCord: They don’t forget it either. You gave them a good time the right way.

Ramsey Russell: You talked about your daddy kind of bringing you into duck hunting. What were some of his biggest influences and what other mentors did you have teaching you not only about duck hunting, but about the swamp or about life in general? What are some of your earliest memories that you have with your dad and some of those other mentors who I assume were probably some of his friends?

Toy McCord: Well, I remember him saying, well, give up in anything you do, keep going. I took that to mean duck hunting, too. And he said, just a little more effort. You don’t have to be second best. You can be successful. So I took that mean do the best you can in any aspect and appreciate what you do. I’ve broken down on the lake and had to paddle off the lake, triple fishing. I don’t cross what we call bass island on Lake Marin now, we got over there and one morning we woke up and the boat wasn’t there, it drifted off in the night. He tried to walk back to, but we got stranded for 3 days and we just told mama that we were going duck hunting. Well, now, my older brother was 12, I was 8 and my younger brother was 6 with my daddy. And we stranded on an island out in the lake, and it was freezing. Now, that was Thanksgiving, it was a cold Thanksgiving. But we could see par lights going across the spillway, the dam, but nobody could see us. And we couldn’t build a fire on the bigger part of the island because we scribbled it out on fire. So we got behind some big logs out on the muddy bar and built a fire that and shells did win. But the third day, the third day we saw the boat had blown back to a corner daddy could wade to on the backside. We got that and we got in the boat and we went back home. Now, mother was very glad to see her 3 boys, but daddy was in some hot water for a long time. So then we say, we’re going here, we’re going there, we’re going to Wright Ridge, we going to Billups, we’re going to Jack’s Creek, we going to the Lake Moultrie, we tell them where we’re going. Because that boy, that was tough time. But now I’m telling you, I killed my first mallard hen there on that trip. I was walking around a little mud bar, then a little creek, little dip right there had grass in it because the lake was real low, stumps everywhere. They used to keep it real low. And I looked up and there was one cup trying to light on me, I took my little 20 gauge, said bam, he folded up and hit right there. Now I was more proud of that than any buck I’ve ever shot or anything like that, I was proud of that duck. And I totaled that duck and daddy said, well, let me help you carry that. Later when we walk and had to wait to get to the boat where the boat was, I said, no, I’m carrying this one. And that boat was so heavy I couldn’t hardly tow him, but I carried him. But that was my first one right there, that was at bass island on Lake Marin. I remember that, Thanksgiving, my first mallard.

Ramsey Russell: You talked about your daddy handing you a little old 22, a rat shot to shoot cripples. How old were you when you got your first shotgun? And what kind of shotgun was it?

Toy McCord: It was about 2 weeks later as a single barrel, 410. Now, it was a single barrel 410 family hand down. Daddy used it when he was a boy, my older brother used it, I used it, my son used it, I nephews used it. So it’s the family hand down, that ain’t been many ducks kill with it, but a lot of doves were shot at the tree with it.

Ramsey Russell: I heard that. Those little old 410 single shots seem to be popular for, I mean even to this day for first shotguns for kids. But they ain’t much for wing shooting, are they? A little bit better for squirrels or something.

Toy McCord: I graduated to a bolt action 20 gauge about a year and a half later and then I was in the big time.

Ramsey Russell: Really?

Toy McCord: I could actually kill one then.

Ramsey Russell: What kind of gun would that have been?

Toy McCord: It’s just a bolt action, look like a regular bolt action, 3 shell in there-

Ramsey Russell: Was it a savage or something like that? You still got that gun?

” I saw a pair of ducks coming across a railroad trussle”

Toy McCord: I could, somebody in the family might have it. I’ll look and see. It had a little choke on the end of it. And I remember that Pax, one morning I was sitting on the stump with my uncle, he used to put me, I didn’t have waders, I too small for waders, didn’t have waders for them, put me on a stump in the middle of Pax Flat and I saw a pair of ducks coming across a railroad trussle. And I live one and sure enough that I happened to kill the one just hold it up and just spiral. I see it right now. Spiral like a football, hit right side me, she kicked the leg twice and I shot the hen. But I was just tickled to death that I’d killed that first duck with that 20 gauge bolt action. Now I couldn’t get 2 or 3 shots off on anything, had that bolt action.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Toy McCord: But then Christmas, I complained and complained and I woke up and there was, under the Christmas tree was a double barrel Fox, 16 gauge.

Ramsey Russell: I bet you still got that gun.

Toy McCord: Yeah, that gun still there, plus another. I still got that one.

Ramsey Russell: You know, a daddy gets stuck out there on the island to go take his boys duck hunt, they all little boys, 6 to 12 years old, and it’s cold and I’m assuming you all didn’t bring no camping gear, but you go out there to duck hunt, you get stuck for 3 days. What’d you all do for three days?

Toy McCord: Well, we had stuff. Now we were going camping one night, but we didn’t have camping stuff, we just had a tarp and fire, and we’d cook hot dogs over open fire. Didn’t have no tent, no tents like that, anything. But we walked around, my brothers and us, we love it, dad would go back and build a fire and stuff. We stayed out best we could.

Ramsey Russell: It didn’t feel like an emergency to you all out. You all were just having a huge adventure, weren’t you?

Toy McCord: We didn’t know we were supposed to be back the next day. We didn’t know nobody knew where we were. And it was a bunch of ducks on the lake, but we can have waders. So we couldn’t wait out in the way where we were on the bank. He was just taking us to a nice trip.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Toy McCord: And it turned into a nice trip.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. I bet you all talk about that forever.

Toy McCord: Yes, sir.

Ramsey Russell: Over the years you’ve probably seen and done some incredible things out there. What are some of your most unforgettable moments other than that trip that you’ve had on the swamp or elsewhere? What are some of the unforgettable moments?

Toy McCord: One unforgettable is we went out the day before the second season started on the lake and it got rough. We were in a wooden boat and the waves rock, and all of a sudden we hit on top of one of them stobs. Now we’re over there again across the lake, other side of the lake, we put in on the Clarendon county side and we went to the other side. But that style was sticking through the boat. And we had gone to build a camp site for when we were going to hunt. So we had an ax in the boat. So daddy took the ax and broke the stub off, cut a life jacket up. Water’s pouring in the wooden boat. Pulled a life jacket up, stuffed it in the hole and made my older brother sit on it. So I’ll always remember that, and it was cool.

“900 families had to move”

Ramsey Russell: You talk about these stobs sticking up and I’m sitting there thinking, first off, Sparkleberry is an interesting name for a swamp. And as old forester, I just remember Sparkleberry, which is in the wild blueberry family vaccinium. And I never thought of it being a swamp tree. I’ve always thought of it being bottomlands or even uplands because it likes a dry soil and it really ain’t much for lumber or timber or nothing else, I guess, but a little habitat. And I got to wonder why they would name, and that swamp we’re talking about is 16,000 acres. It’s a big old landmark. And what an interesting name for a swamp. And I come to find out that that was one of those projects back in the post-depression government funded one of them public works where they, you’ve seen it kind of depicted like some of these movies deliverance or oh brother, where are they? Where they needed some hydroelectric, stuff like that. And they went and dammed up this area. I mean people, 900 families had to move, 6,000 cemeteries had to be moved. A lot of communities just went kaput. A lot of folks lost their livelihoods because the government’s fixing to come and build this dam and flood all this bottom area. And you happened to hit it right about the time it filled up. And there were a lot of live and dying trees, which means that later you had a bunch of stobs. And I tell you what I hate riding a boat in the dark where you got stob that you can’t see, but they’re sure center line you and catch you. That happened to me in West Virginia this year. How would you avoid stuff like it?

Toy McCord: Well, what you do is you got to learn the territory and exactly how I do it? Well, when the lake gets low, I put my boat in the water then, whether it’s July, June, August, December and I ride where I hunt then, and I see if anything is moved and stuff like that. Same thing in Sparkleberry swamp, stuff moves, trees break down, but that’s what you have to do. We hit a stob one day that wasn’t there, my brother was following me, I went between two cypress trees, and it wasn’t a stump there, But I felt something kind of nick my boat. And then I heard falling, lay down in the front seat, said, look back, I look back, and the bottom of their boat was straight up in the air. They had hit a stob that wasn’t there and hit the dead tree in front of it, and it broke off and it went up and flipped over backwards. And it was a cold day, it’s colder back then it is now most of the time. Pull back there, I’ll always remember that, the bottom of that boat sticking up. We went and pulled them in the boat, and they lost 3, 4 boxes of shells, 2 guns. So we tied the boat up right there and I said, we going hunt, I’m going to take you back to the landing and we pulled them and boat, we took them back to the land and said, you all go get the other boat and come on. We going up Pine Island Creek, we’ll be up there on the right. And we went on hunting later on in the morning, here he comes. And coming back, we had a couple friends from Florence that we told them what happened. And we pull up that spot, and one of them was one of these really a macho guy, nice guy, though. He said, I’ll get it, he jumped in that cold water, for about 30 seconds, he climbed back and says, you all got to get them guns yourself. So then we went back home and filled this thing out and tried to find, we found a guy that had a big car dealer, something had a big magnet. We tied a rope to it and went back, and we got both guns and some bunches of shells and stuff like that. One of the guns never worked again but they were on the bottom. Now, I went right across that same place yesterday with a 50 horsepower motor wide open, my son driving in the swamp, I went fishing in Sparkleberry the same Sparkleberry swamp yesterday afternoon.

Ramsey Russell: Looks totally different now I bet.

Toy McCord: Not way up there but yet a lot of the short stuff is grown up with bushy stuff now and a lot of the open flats are more open but there’s some grass that’s grown in it now. And a lot of – it does look, some of them you can’t get into, you wouldn’t recognize what I used to call the 54 hole, it’s sawgrass everywhere. They come up, the grass that came down from the rivers from years of stuff and the low water would catch and grow and go back up. The water fluctuates in the swamp. But they did raise it about a foot and a half one year the whole lake level and it flooded the swamp more then that started killing some more trees, making some more open places.

Ramsey Russell: Who would have been some of the – You started hunting there when you were 5, 6 years old with your daddy, by the time you’re about 15 years old your kind of going out on your own and exploring this place. Who would have been some of the other grown adults that kind of mentored you at that age?

Toy McCord: My uncle, Uncle Charles duck hunted and he was a good duck hunter and he was very good on hiding and let them come in, let them work and I’d be done shot box of shells by the time he said shoot. But I had him and he worked with and took the kids he took care because my dad was older than his 3 brothers. So he raised help raised them, so they were taking care of us go. And I had 3 uncles and half uncles but uncles and they spent a lot of time with us and one of them loved to go in the swamp. We get in a 2 man boat and he paddle us around. Now, understand that we did a lot of wood duck shooting late in the evening around in the swamp back then. Fact is I was probably 15 before I found out you weren’t supposed to shoot after sundown. So you would leave school and go get on a branch and shoot a wood duck and be tickled with one wood duck back then. But then we went up in the swamp started seeing all them ducks and said listen this different game here. We got to elevate our game. I mean, we didn’t notice all those mallards were there. We grew up shooting a few wigeon on the lake and some teal and mostly wood duck around home. But then we got into the mallards then, so then we had to raise our game a little bit.

Ramsey Russell: Mr. Toy, when you were 15, 16 years old, getting off in that swamp, finding your foot, and when would that have been on a timeline? Would that have been in the late 60s, early 70s?

Toy McCord: Oh, no, that was in the early 60s. I was going in there when I was in it by myself, though. I’m 65, I’ve been all over that place in 1965. And as I was a senior then go school, so, I was all over the place then. So, you wouldn’t see anybody.

Ramsey Russell: If that swamp is 16,000 acres, how much of that ground were you all covering?

Toy McCord: No, it was 16,000 before it got refloated.

Ramsey Russell: Okay.

Toy McCord: And now they call this almost 30. See, the first time they flooded, it touched the Aiken ridges. When they raised it a foot and a half, it covered the Aiken ridges. Then you could go more places, so you had more places to get lost. I mean, we camped there one day, and we walked away from camp, I walk across 2 ridges. Excuse me. I walk across 2 ridges. Coming back, I walked across 2 ridges, and when my brother caught me, I was about a half a mile up the swamp lost. And I was shooting, every time I see a duck jumping, I shoot not to kill him, but letting everybody know I was lost, my body temperature changed. And I’m walking and finally I heard him holler, Toy? It’s my older brother. He said, where are you going? I said, Jimmy, I crossed the 2. Yeah, but you crossed the place where there’s 3 ridges. You crossed the point of the second ridge that was in between the 2 big ridges, and that’s where I went up the middle one instead of right where the camp was. But he come and he caught me, I’d be in Columbia right now if you hadn’t caught me. But guess what? I remember that to this day where that middle ridge is, and there’s a nice pocket right above it that you can kill a duck in.

Ramsey Russell: How many times were you lost out there? Was it a pretty regular occurrence getting lost out in that big, dark swamp?

Toy McCord: Well, when I say lost, early on, it’s more turn around before I’d admit lost. But, yeah, I was lost quite two or three times, I’ve never been lost, spent the night but one night in there. But I usually try to figure. Well, I said, I know I’m up swamp, I know the water is going downstream, so I got on one of them. And the night, I spent the night in the boat, I went downstream, but I hit a creek, it turned and went up. And when I got up that one, I didn’t know where I was. And actually, I was up the swamp when I thought I was down the swamp because the water was running the wrong way. I know where that is now, too. And I spent the night there. And then the daylight hours, I started looking at the ridges and recognize a fallen stob or something, I got out of there.

Ramsey Russell: What kind of equipment were you all running back in the 1960s? What was you all set up? What was you all, duck boats and I know you didn’t have no fancy new motors, you all had just old outboard and stuff, what were you all running?

“we pooled our money and we bought a Mercury motor with a slip clutch”

Toy McCord: We got a 9.8, or was it a 9.5 Mercury motor without a shear pin. I had a buddy in college, Bobby Cole, great guy, linebacker, great player. Had a little small 5 horsepower Elgin. And at schools out on Saturday or before class, we would hit, but we had to get nails cut, it would break if it saw a stone. So when they came out, that Mercury motor with a slip clutch, we pooled our money and we bought a Mercury motor with a slip clutch, 9, 9.5, whatever it was and that’s what we drove. And now we tear it up, we spend $500, $600, $700, $800, $1,000 to fix it instead of a pin, we tear the foots up.

Ramsey Russell: That’s right.

Toy McCord: At one time, the Mercury dealer we were started to break the boats off the back, the motor off the back of the boat, and I got a really a great story on that one. I’ll go ahead and tell it now. I was going up Pine Island Creek, had something to land in the boat with me with his buddy, and I was using his boat with his 9.5 and I was flying and I hit a stob that wasn’t there, and it came up and it jacked back down, it broke the bracket. And I was holding the motor and it was under the water and I was trying to hold it and it was churning and I dropped the motor and the boat was still moving. I told John and Muckin, grab the paddle, they said, well, motor? I said, don’t worry about the motor, we still got time before daylight to get to the hole. So we finally got up there and hunted, he said, how about my motor? I said, John, it’s going to be right there when we come back. So we ain’t no need to come up here and not hunt because we don’t have a motor, we were already there.

Ramsey Russell: That’s right.

Toy McCord: But then we kept complaining to the Mercury people about it and they come and gave me a motor. A 25 and it cracked the bracket. But then I got another one, it didn’t crack the bracket, that’s the one they got now, they reinforce that bracket where they’re tough motors now. And I’m sure Johnson’s got good. Yamaha is a great. But I’ve always been a Mercury man. And they don’t make the 25 to 2 strokes no more.

Ramsey Russell: Yes. That’s why. You talked about a little while ago, you talked about getting off the big water, getting back in that swamp, you’d go off to them branches and shoot a wood duck or two. But as you got back in the swamp, you started seeing wild flocks of ducks and you told your buddies, we got to step it up. Who were your buddies? Number one. And how did you all start stepping it up back in the day?

Toy McCord: Well, I have Greg Herlon, a young boy from Manning, love outdoorsman. We grew up, I was a good bit older than him, but he’s on the bus stop in that neighborhood, he was there, his older brother played ball with me and all that, Greg wanted to go and his daddy wanted me to take him. So Greg started hunting with me at a young age, and when he get out of school, I would tell him where to go check, where I hadn’t checked that, he became a great hunter. And now he doesn’t hunt now, but he was really good. And my brother Donald took to it more. He would go and do a lot of that, he was a couple of years younger. He loved it too. And one of my friends at college would do the same thing, but I had to do most of it myself. I wasn’t comfortable unless I saw how they were moving. And so many times I’ve been in there and did some scouting, I didn’t tell people how I did it, but I would look and things like that and I’ve watched the water and we’d sit at home and we’d watch a big rain used to be the winter rains, but we don’t have anymore. We hunting on the lake and the second day of the rain, I noticed that the lake, the water came up a couple inches, I’d hooked that boat up, I had a 14ft dual craft and I had a 9.5 on it, 8 or 25. And I’d hit the swamp because I knew that the water started up, if the ducks knew it was coming up before we did. Those ducks we were seeing in the flats and stuff flying over our head then. So I had to go swamp and look and find the Aiken ridges.

Ramsey Russell: Well, the ducks like new water, they like new water, don’t they?

Toy McCord: No, they love it. Yeah, they love it. And it can get too much up there when it’s hard to get them congregated. The decoy good, they want to light out, hen light over there. So what you had to do then you got to move to a real tight hole and then get them to come through the trees, and you had a better chance then. But it takes a lot of hit and missing to learn all that and where it is. The 54 hole was one of them, it was a thick place. And yeah, it was two days there. And I didn’t hunt by myself, by the way, I’d hunt with 3 or 4, 5 guys mostly. And we go in and we could limit was like 5 apiece then. So you say you, you killed 25 one day. Somebody said, boy, that’s a lot of ducks. Yeah, but it was within the law. It was the limit.

Ramsey Russell: But that would have been back in the point system depending on how your points fail, right?

Toy McCord: That’s right. It changed. One year they went to 2. 2 mallets all you could kill, but back then it was liberal, like now limit is 6, but only 4 mallards. Then it went where you couldn’t shoot a hen, then it went where you can only kill one hen, all that, but there was a point system. But the point system didn’t last very long. The 90 to 80 to 100, whatever it was, that didn’t last very long, that was kind of complicated too. And so many people that duck hunt weren’t duck hunters, they didn’t know the difference between a gadwall hen and a mallard. I pulled up at a dock one morning, I had 4 gadwalls in the bottom of the boat and I had a mallard, great. And you could kill, I think 2 or 3 mallards. Then the game warden came up there and I knew him, he pointed, I said, yeah, I had a good morning. He pointed again, I said, what’s wrong? You got all those mallards, you got over the limit of mallards, you pulled up him. I said, no, where’s the mallards? He’s like, right there, I said, gadwalls. Look, I showed him the white wings, this that, he didn’t know that. So some of the early game wardens didn’t know the difference either because they’re coming when the big thing back then.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Toy McCord: They were looking for the deer and things like that and fishing.

Ramsey Russell: What kind of equipment would you all, when you started off in that swamp back in your teen years, your early years back in the 60s, what was your equipment like you were using? You talked about a duracraft boat and either a 9-9 or that 25 horse motor. What about the decoys and the shotgun shells and the waders and the warm clothes? What were you wearing? What were you all wearing, you and your 4 or 5 buddies back there?

Toy McCord: There wasn’t any warm clothes, it was a field jacket back then before they made all this stuff. And a pair the cotton gloves that cost a dollar and it would get wet, you know what I’m saying? That was that and a pair of gold cup socks with the little waders that you put the tennis shoe over the top of and a little 14ft-9ft John boat that when you hit a stob it leaked and you’d have to patch it real quick. I carried a bunch of duct tape with me stuff and put something over it and tape it up real quick where I could get out of the swamp. And we always carry a big jar to dip the water, always carried the big job. And we learned to put the battery in the front of the boat with a long line for the cubing. Because in the back when you hit them stobs, it hooks the motor the boat and it break. And then you got a hole in the back, you got trouble, you got it in the front, you can keep it. You don’t get as much water in.

Ramsey Russell: Keep it up on plane, keep it coming out.

Toy McCord: Yeah. And then you can put tape over that a lot easier than the back corner when there’s a hole. I’ve been at a bunch of times I’ve been climbed out on the stob, couldn’t get the boat off. Had fellas come get me one day, we try to drive the circle, we getting dizzy circling, a fella came up and I asked him could he pull us off or something and we just remember we got in his boat then we pulled it off. He said well, I’m worried about tearing this up. I said don’t you worry about tearing nothing up in there that’s already been torn up, been a bunch of times, just get me off this stob. And so I’ve been pulled out and I pull people out. But we got cold and miserably cold and we had paper shells, of course. Now if you got them wet when it rained, it got wet. They were sticking your gun, there go the double barrel was good. So I had a long stick I carried me to punch it out. And so I stick that thing back in with younger days. So that was a good thing about the double barrel. And the decoys, we pulled a pin out the back, blowing it 2 or 3 times and it puffed up, it’s about a half bigger than the teal. And then we put those out and use them and incredibly you could kill some duck over.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Toy McCord: Then they came out with the big time decoy was to hurt us, when they came out with them, when they came out with the herders, we spent a lot of money. Now they didn’t tell us that gasoline would burn them up, they didn’t say had to paint them and repaint them and it would chip and all that. But so we had to learn a lesson there. And we had very hard decoys sometimes, the old hard decoy, they’re almost like wood stuff, we use them. And then when we really started hunting and in the ocean stuff, we got coot decoys too when we started doing that. So instead of doing that, we get a dozen coot decoys and we go in the yard and cut about 2 dozen little wooden blocks, put a nail on the bottom of it, tie some line to it and paint it black and throw it in there. And then we’d have 3, 4 dozen coot decoys. And so we learned to do all that.

Ramsey Russell: You reckon those decoys would still work today?

“Can you tell the difference in you calling the duck that hadn’t been called that”

Toy McCord: No doubt. If you get right whether the right time and a new flight of ducks. No doubt about it. Can you tell the difference in you calling the duck that hadn’t been called that? Absolutely. Can you tell you can call that a duck that is a release duck and not a wild up? Absolutely. So yeah, I can almost tell you where he’s born when you call them.

Ramsey Russell: What was the duck hunting like back in that era? We talked a little bit about the limbus, but what species and what kind of flocks of ducks and how many ducks were you seeing back in that swamp back in the 1960s and 1970s growing up?

Toy McCord: Well, we had on the outskirts of it, keep in mind I said the water was kept low a lot. We had tons of wigeon, tons of wigeon which they’ve disappeared, but that was number one staple duck. And we had some gadwalls, now the gadwall has replaced the mallards down here we got more gadwalls than we got wild mallards. We always had teal and we had a lot of diving duck but we didn’t pay much attention to them, now that’s the biggest duck to shot in South Carolina. Now I think probably ringnecks.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Toy McCord: Because of the pond system and everything. But we had pintails, it was a good, no limit really on pintails other than like 4, like regular ducks then. Now they’re really managed now, and they’re a beautiful duck to shoot. I’ll pick one out of a drove every time for my one. If they would have 10 or 20, 30 mallards I’ll shoot that odd duck, I used to love to do that, teach him to fly with the rest of them. But we had a good many ducks, our refuge held 150000 mallards at that time. Yeah, it was biggest refuge on east coast on Lake Marin right there. So we had mallards then. And you’d be hunting in the flats and you’d see 5 or 6 droves go up, and all of a sudden it rained for 2 days, and you sit in the flat and you see 150 droves go up. You crank the motor and leave right then and go looking.

Ramsey Russell: I bet. When you were out there back in those days, because you said this about new ducks, when did the game farm mallard come on the scene? When did you start – the tammies? When did the tammies show up? I mean, back in the day when you was growing up out there on that swamp, you talking about lots of wild mallards and gadwalls, some pintails in places. When did the put and take mallard show up on the scene?

Toy McCord: Well, we had some ponds that open up and they released some ducks on them.

Ramsey Russell: Who did? The state or the Federal government or who?

Toy McCord: It was not state, it was local.

Ramsey Russell: Okay.

Toy McCord: And with many 1993, 1994 somewhere in there. And as I don’t think that the wild mallard mingles real good with that release duck. I’m not calling tame ducks, I say release ducks, and they’re raised. They’re raised there and then they grow up and they pretty fly. But when you shoot at them, they don’t flare up like wild duck, they just keep going, stuff like that. But there’s quite a few of them now. And now I’ve killed 2 or 3 up in the swamp in the early times, but no more than that. Because to start with, all of them had to add bands so you knew what you were shooting stuff and then they dropped that. And then they had to clip the toes, then they quit clipping the toes, so nobody could tell which one was which. But there’s a lot of release ducks now.

Ramsey Russell: Back in those days, I’m going to circle back to those olden days when you were cutting your teeth and back in the old days on the Sparkleberry swamp. Describe that swamp, what were you seeing? What are some of the most memorable aspects of that environment that may not even involve ducks?

Toy McCord: Well, when you leave the land, you notice that you see in different kind of vegetation you’ve never seen. And then when you hook up into the swamp, then you see all these button bushes and stuff, you See a little bit on the open lake and it’d be whole, almost a whole flat of button bushes. Now, I love that. I love to see the vegetation. I love to get into the big trees, I love to figure out where the run is, and we would see the trees and learn where the run, if you find a run, you can run hard, but everything looks like the run. So there’s certain kind of little trees or big trees you better look for if you’re going to run hard, not the little stuff. And the tupelos ain’t one to run hard in, the big cypresses, fine. But that creek might not be full 3 yards wide, so you got to know. And how do you find that out? There’s trial and error, there’s broken motors and paddling out the swamp and all them little floating logs, it’s all that. But I mean, you have to love it. Like what we said yesterday we’d fish yesterday morning up late went into the swamp and we didn’t catch many, caught 7, 8 fish. We said, you know what, this is successful. Just look at this, that’s me and my son. He said, dad, I love being up here. And we saw 4 or 5 wood ducks, we saw 2 mallards up there, which was surprised to hang out of 3 or 4 mergansers. But he said, we got to start hunting more again back up here in this because it’s so beautiful. And we went up in between the Aiken ridges, and most of them were kind of flooded, and you could see a deer or two occasionally and used to see some turkeys in certain areas. But you see different kind of swamp birds, different things than what you see on open lake. And you notice how the stream has changed. It used to be a little further over there, but a high water dug it out a little more in another place. So you’d have to go to the left, maybe a yard and a half more, it’d still be in the stream again. So that’s when you go, when the water gets low, you go back in there to places you hunt and feel how to drive and where to go. Otherwise, things changed on you and you get all messed up again. Now I see fellas riding through there pretty hard now, but they’re using a thing called mud buddies and like the little airboat kind of things.

Ramsey Russell: Surface drives.

Toy McCord: Very loud. You see a duck get up a mile away when they crank them up much time. And it’s kind of hard to ease up and down the creeks and you hear one of them coming, you’re easing, so get out of the way. But they tell me, when they tear up, they tear up. I don’t know.

Ramsey Russell: You bring up some good points there and some really good points about, some of the good and the bad of changes then versus now. Go back to then, go back to them old days. I was going to ask you earlier, how was competition back then? How many people were you sharing this paradise with? And how competitive was it? How early were you all getting up to get out there and beat the next guy to the spot? Was it so many duck holes it didn’t matter?

Toy McCord: It was very competitive to me at early age. There was maybe another group or two, they took it as serious, but otherwise most of them would leave 30 minutes, 45 minutes, full daylight and go and just hunt wherever they could, wherever daylight caught them. But it wasn’t anything like it is now. There’s more people scout now than ever hunted back then. It’s just, you see 25, 30 boats in the swamp on a given day when it used to be, you might see 2 or 3. And if you saw 3, 2 of them would be the same fellows you’d seen over and over.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Toy McCord: And guess what? When we found ducks, we let them know where we found up, they didn’t bother us, and we didn’t bother them where they found them. We hunted here, they hunted there. Then we got to where the point that, then we got real successful. I had some great stories, I’ll tell it one time another on that of people following you around, pulling up, looking where you hunt and leaving and stuff like that.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. How did you break away from – let’s just say even though you had, it wasn’t as many people, there were some people? How did you gain an upper, gain an edge on the competition? Because now, throughout your story, it sounds to me like you weren’t just going back in the swamp during duck season. It sounded to me like you spent year round back up in there.

Toy McCord: Year around, yeah.

Ramsey Russell: You knew it as well as you do the floor plan of your home you’ve lived in forever.

Toy McCord: It’s kind of like that. It’s kind of like at work, you better talk to your customers 12 months to get that one order, and so, it’s the same thing. You got plan. If you want to be successful, you got to put the work in. I had a group used to call me 2 days before duck season every year. Where the ducks? Now I’m supposed to tell them where they are and I did for a few, then I realized they were hunting where I was hunting. So I learned to find the ducks, watch the ducks that was going to hunt, find out that people’s going to hunt with me and stay there. And I would be there as long as I’ve ever been in the woods, was in the lake, in the swamp, was 5 days one time, 5 days for daylight to dark, went home, went back for the opening season because I was on the ducks and nobody was going to beat me to the hole. So the day before, I might stick my decoys right there, but be right there with them in my boat. If they say, well, you ain’t got no decoy. Yeah, I got put 2 decoys right there. I show my 2 decoys and here’s my bag, my sleeping bag in the boat, here’s my drinks and stuff, I’m here and there’s my gun, I’m here. Now, I would never have no shells till my buddy coming in, bring the people, I got it a lot then. They’d bring some people 30 minutes before daylight time, he’d bring my shells and stuff, they couldn’t say I was shooting ducks, so I was scouting, and I took it serious. And I knew kind of watching now when I saw them going to a certain area, I know where to go look.

Ramsey Russell: When you were scouting, as few people as a word then versus now, could you see in the behavior of ducks the effect of any hunting pressure? Like, you found the ducks out here in this particular spot, this break. Did you just beat the brakes off of them till they left or did you give them a break? How’d you do all that? Was there hunting pressure? How did you deal with it?

“I stomped through there and walked in, coming over a little corner there and it was about 50 or 75, sitting right there. I said, well, that’s where I’m going to hunt”

Toy McCord: One of the things I’ll tell you is I had heard some ducks were leaving the refuge, going up. Well, it’s for the season, I didn’t know where they were going. So I went up there before daylight 3, 4 mornings in a row, and I saw a pair, then I saw a small drove, and I saw a pair circle a couple times, go back into an area, and I couldn’t see no ducks that day I called that funny, said, yeah, the ducks are still going across the thrustle. So I went back, I went a little deeper, then I parked my boat, I saw a pair of ducks go across that same ridge. I parked my boat, put my waders on, I stomped through there and walked in, coming over a little corner there and it was about 50 or 75, sitting right there. I said, well, that’s where I’m going to hunt. And all I did was sit out there on the run, I went back after dark when they got up and left, got me a couple decoys, went, put them right there, put something else there, let somebody know that somebody was going to be there. And I sat in the boat for 2 days and somebody come upstream, they say, well, are you seeing ducks? I said, yeah, I seen some, they’re going right here and that’s where I’m hunting. I’m going to walk across and hunt there. I sit there for 2 days to tell people where I was going to hunt, where they wouldn’t bother me. Now, the people that hunted, most of them were pretty good hunters then, and they respect you a little bit. Now, you don’t know who’s hunting around you, you know what they think. But there wasn’t a few groups that really hunted in there that hard at that time. But anyway, I was successful like that, I’ve done that 4 or 5 times.

Ramsey Russell: Back in that bygone era, Mr. Toy, you keep talking about it, there seemed to be an etiquette among public land hunters. I mean, you could talk to each other. It’s like you had self respect, you respected others, and it all worked out. I don’t think those times exist hardly anywhere no more now on public land.

Toy McCord: And it got tough then. It got to the point where, if you don’t mind me telling about one of my hunts.

Ramsey Russell: No, please do.

Toy McCord: We were up in the swamp hunting and doing pretty good. And other 2 groups to hunting around us, they knew we were hunting there. And then we pull up one morning and there’s people sitting in the decoys. And I’d known the people and they’re friends now, but they hit me with a cube beam and I’d heard them boulder come to us. So I knew that they were coming to where we were hunting, but I didn’t think they – I figured they knew I was hunting there because most of those groups would not leave until I got to the land and it’d be a Sparkleberry landing, they see what we killed in, then when I got there, they see what we killed, they leave. Well, this group was a different group, so I told my regular hunting buddy then was Lex from Florida, great guy. I took him striper fishing when he was 8 years old, and the stripers are still mad at me. And I took him duck hunting when he was 17 and when he was 19 or 20, I said, Lex, I need some help, my partner, would you like to hunt me? He said, I would. And he hunted me for years and he’s still a great friend, you can’t ask for a better friend and he’s a great outdoorsman and great hunter, fisherman. But at any rate, I said, this group of fellows right here beat us to our hole. So we went to another place that morning, and we did real well. And then here comes that boat, I could hear a boat. We went toward them and cut them off, same group. So I said, Lex, let’s fix them up good. We picked up, we’d been picking up all our shell holes, we don’t like to leave them in a hole because people say, well, that’s where they hunt. So we moved on a line about 400 yards from where we were actually hunting. Went over to a pretty little hole, threw all the shell holes out, took some of the mouths, we killed, pick the feathers, poured the feathers everywhere, looks like, took the shotgun and shot it, shot 3 volleys. And then we shot us against a tree where he could look like I shot a cripple, something like that, and run around through the grass. So the next morning we got there, and then them boys, they went to land and they took off. He said, you think we need to go? I said, don’t worry about them. We can go where we were the first day now. So we went there, and they went right to where we throw them holes and stuff, that was great. We broke them with that day, I told them later what had happened. I said, you all keep following me, you all need to look for your own duck and you’ll kill more than trying to flip with the duck I’ve already shot. Yeah, I figured to help them out a little bit, but that was one of the things. So I knew that it got the point where, sometimes you got to go early if you wait where the wind – now you got to watch the wind, you got these big cypress trees, okay? I’ve started the breakout hole on one end of it is some big cypress trees. I burn them up there, that’s one of my favorite places to hunt. But I learned through experience there’s two winds, you better not hunt on it because even though you got them coming to you, those big trees are going to cause them to go another 50 to 75 yards up a 100 yards in light. So that’s a 2 wind hole. But it ain’t a north wind hole but it’s a good south southwest hole. Because then they come down the flat and come in and it’s the big trees at my back. Even though that’s where they want to swim and go. So, I learned that and that hole. And so you know the wind, when you’re looking for a place to hunt, the wind’s going to be very important the next day. You can kill them 3 days in a row in a place if the wind’s right and it might change twice. But if you still got an avenue for the ducks to come in when it is good. But so with it where if I plan to hunt, I get home, I check the wind conditions, I don’t worry too much about the rain. But when it rains hard in the swamp, you kind of want to go with us some wood ducks flying and some wigeons, because the mallards not going to fly much in the rain. The day it breaks off, they pull in about thousands. They used to when we had them. So we play it like that.

Ramsey Russell: Did you ever find yourself – I know some of my favorite mallard spots, it’s later in the morning, midday maybe before the mallards start pouring in.

Toy McCord: You are playing dirty now. I was going to say, I got this little fellow sitting here with you playing dirty. I got the mid-morning hole, absolutely. I’d go somewhere early hunt to 08:30AM, pack them up, guys, we going already? Just pack them up. But we only got 8, pack them up. I run up there and I sit up there and I sit there at 12 o’ clock we get our birds and come back. I could go up there at daylight, kill 3.

Ramsey Russell: What’s the difference in them 2 holes, Mr. Toy? The early hole and the midday hole. What’s going on there?

Toy McCord: The early hole is like a feeding hole, wherever I go, it’s like a feeding hole. It’s a tight hot spot, whatever. The midday hole, the duck can see a long way, it’s a resting hole with some shallow water here, a little ridge there, a little foot water here a little 5ft over there, a little deeper here with some covers, with some trees, but an open hole more. Now, I was hunting out on the lake, it didn’t do nothing one morning and I said, well, I’m going to go to the swamp. I put my boat in and I just rode and I rode and I didn’t hear no ducks, I didn’t see no ducks, then I saw a duck go down. I cut my motor off and I sat there and I heard, 2 or 3 hit it. I said, well, I’m going to walk over there and that’s waist deep water now, I tied my boat up right there and I started walking. And when I walked, I heard some more ducks and I saw some more. So I hit the call and I called up and drove up mallards, swim up to me. I killed two green heads, 2 shots, all right? I tied them, put them up in the tree right there, and I walked a little further. Then I called up another bunch of, I said, I ain’t going to shoot them, I’m going hunt them tomorrow, I’m going to hunt them, but I got to find where. But I didn’t want to run the duck up, so I stopped right there and I saw where the ducks were milling. So I went back and I called my buddy, my brothers, 2 brothers, Fuzzy first and Greg and I say, we going back, I found some ducks we had at swamp. But that morning I didn’t know the easy way to get there, I said, you all stay here, hold your light up, I’m going to go the way I think the ducks were. And I went in there and I found just a little hole, then I saw a little bigger hole and I got in that little hole. That morning we kill a few ducks, but we didn’t see no ducks. I was, well, let’s go. Where’s we going to go? And go. We loaded up, coming out of there, I saw another drove go in, then I saw another drove come from way up the swamp, go in. I said, these ducks are resting in here, they’re not feeding in here. So the next morning I went back and guess what happened. From 9 o’ clock to 11 o’ clock we cut them. And I cut one open and there was corn in him, he was coming from the corn ponds up the swamp around Columbia. And coming and resting there and going back, that’s why I wasn’t seeing them on the lower end. And the 3^rd day we did that, I heard a boat, paddle hill boat. A guy, I love this story. Now, this is the 3^rd time I’ve ever been in this story, I’m waist deep water standing, and the he paddles up to me in the boat and says, I said, we over here? He said, yeah, I want to know what the story is. I said, beg your pardon? Yeah, I’ve been hunting him for 3 days, and I ain’t kill nothing. And obviously, you all are killing these ducks. I want to know what the story is. I said, number one is you’re dumb if you sit back there, killing it and you stay back there 3 days. Well, that tells me what kind of hunter you are. Number two, if you don’t get that boat out of here right now, I’m going to sink it. And he turns around and said, this is the first time I’ve ever been here, and you insinuating I’m baiting 8ft of water. So the best thing for you is get out of here. But I love that story. But that was there the first 3 days I’d hunted there, that’s the midday hole. And I hunt down it there last year, and I still hunt there and I’ve taken very few people there and very few went back. But then we got there one morning, there was, we hunted there another 3 or 4 days in a row and heard some nasty stuff, I didn’t know what it was, but it was electric motors, guys in sneak boats were jumping ducks and come up and they come looking where we hunting, who are almost up on us. Well, I suggest we here, he’ll come and see where the shooting was. Well, the next morning, we got there 2.5 hours early, 2 hours early, thought there might be somebody there and there was 23 decoys, like I say, in the hole. Well, we sit there, we waited 30 minutes, full daylight, nobody come. I said, well, I don’t guess they coming. So we picked their decoys, wrapped them up and put them all in a pile. And about 3 minutes, full daylight, here come a boat now. We done bust through that swamp going there, we’ve hunted there 15 times never seen nobody else hunt them. So I knew it’s sneak boat guys. And when they pull up there, we said, sir, we didn’t think you all were coming, but we piled your decoys up for you right there where you get them, get you a chance to get somewhere to hunt early. And guy put his decoys in the boat and he says, there’s only 23 here, yes, that’s what, I had 24. Before I could say anything that’s my brother had already wrapped one of them up, so he said now you got 24, getting one of them. Now I said sir, if I had seen your cube in, I wouldn’t be here, I wouldn’t even come within 600, 800 yards, I’ve been another part of the swamp. But I came and broke through the swamp running over stuff left and right, left 2 hours early to landing and there was nobody here. And didn’t think you were coming, you didn’t come to daylight. So I’m going to hunt here. But if I’d have seen your cube, I wouldn’t be nowhere near you. Well, my decoys, well yesterday they were. But decoys do not hold a hole. Otherwise I’ll go put 2 in every hole in the swamp and I’ll be the only fellow that can only hunt. How about that? He said, well okay, I understand then. But I didn’t have trouble for them, but I wasn’t mad at him, it’s just come on, be there, go now I see a cube in, I don’t go near it.

Ramsey Russell: That’s right.

Toy McCord: You respect that. Especially if you know the area that other people are hunting and your buddies are hunting. They don’t bother us, we don’t bother them, don’t go in there. If we have to go there, we call them and say let’s hunt together, something like that, we’ve done that. There’s about 3 groups that used to be they would do that. They respected us, we respected them.

Ramsey Russell: Back in those days, was there ever any fist fights or tire cuttings or just some of the vicious stuff you used to see?

“The next day a couple of my friends found that hole with over them does, and they went in it, day before the season”

Toy McCord: Well, we did get to landing one day and have full flat tires and there was a photo lived at the house right up above the landing there. He come up a little later and said, oh, you all need some help? For so much money, I’ll take you to get your air in your tires. He didn’t split him, he let them out, they let the air out. And at another time, my buddy Lex and myself. Went up and we were going to hunt 87 flat and then the breakout hole is not far from it. And we pull up on the top of the breakout hole in the creek to keep people from coming in. We had a guy or he had the people in the place. And Lex hears this morning, he says, I recognize that motor, that’s John. Yeah, that’s John, he said, let’s play with him. And we hit the cube where we were, and he pulled into the breakout hole. And Lex hollered, hey, you too close, John didn’t say nothing. We knew who it was now it’s a friend of ours. I mean, look here, this guy played pro ball, too. And he was so tough, his hand was swollen one day before a game he couldn’t catch, he was a catcher, too. Now he’s hard, great friend, great guy. He took a scalpel and stabbed it in his hand, let all the puss and the stuff out of his hand to catch. So I didn’t want to fool somebody like that. And actually, let’s go have some fun. And if you don’t come, we going to come over there and beat your butt. So we cranked up and we run wide open, says, pull up there. And I said, yeah, what you going to do, we going to have to be, he says, well, I guess we just going to have to fight. When he said that, we started laughing. We sure didn’t want to fight him. And then he said, you all, but we had some fun there. And I said, yeah, we going over 87 flat, John. He said, we going to stay here, we okay here. You find everybody, we’ll see you later. Talk to that boy 2 weeks ago still and now look here, that’s when I was 30 something years old, 47, we’re still friends. So that’s great. That’s the thing that. And look, I would never go nowhere near where he was, whatever. And another time up there, I say, you scout and you wait, find the ducks, I saw some ducks behind a ridge, it was on Pine Island Creek behind a ridge way back there. It was a pile of ducks, must have been 400 or 500. And I was watching them and I noticed a hawk flew over. When the hawk flew over, about 50 got up and they went to another little hole across the creek and lived. Then later they got up and went back to that hole. Well, the next day a couple of my friends found that hole with over them does, and they went in it, day before the season. And guess what they did? They camped in it. Which that’s their right. But what they didn’t have was camping gear and camouflage. They run every duck out of that hole and them duck went over and lit with them duck lit the other day I was watching. So I sit there on the stream and everybody ride by and say I’m hunting right there. So I went to the hole that the ducks that they were on, that we were all on, that they had run up, but they sat in the hole all day and the ducks didn’t go in there. They killed one that morning, we kill a limit because they said in the hole instead of outside the hole. On the lower end of the Sparkleberry, when they started releasing the mallards, one of the ponds, the guy told me the ducks were leaving at 9 o’ clock going to the swamp. I went up there today before the season daylight, I saw two pair of wigeon go in the swamp. So I sat there and I started on up to the Sparkleberry, I got on the edge of Sparkleberry, I looked and I saw a drover ducks coming. I cut off and watched them, saw them go in a hole. I sat there, then another group, then a group of wigeon went in there. So I eased it over there not to run them up and I watched drove after drove go in there. Well, when it got dark, I pulled into the hole and 2 out 6 decoys called my buddy, told him bring my gun and my waders and stuff and bring the people here in the morning, I ain’t leaving. I sit right there and ducks were swimming around me and I’m laying down in the bottom of the boat with nothing on but my stuff, it was opening day. And that morning we told him, said we might kill a few ducks early up in the morning, we’re going to get our duck. I had 7 people and one was a highway commissioner and all that. But we got there and they came in too but Lex brought them in that morning and we really had a good hunt. And funny about that hunt because the guys were saying we were picking ducks up, this guy says this duck doesn’t have one ft. And this other one said well I picked two, I don’t have but one foot.

Ramsey Russell: What?

Toy McCord: But I knew what was happening now, I knew what was happening. So I looked over there to the boat, Lex in the back boat, he had his back turned everybody, he had that knife out, he’s cutting them. He had a handful of bands, we call that the one foot hole now.

Ramsey Russell: One foot hole.

Toy McCord: Yeah, we killed 8 or 10 wigeon but 80% of every mallard we killed was release bird that came in the swamp. And I was lucky that I saw that. And then there was another time I was riding around in the swamp, way up the swamp and I run it, this guy was sitting in the run and I went over and talked to him, I said you just sitting? And he said yeah, we lost all our ducks. He was one of the co-owners of, a big pond up in the swamp that had ducks. I said you all lost your ducks? I said well I ain’t found them. And then I knew exactly who he was. I said if he said he’s lost his duck and he’s up here, his ducks is coming here somewhere. I’m not round all day now. 2 days from then we’re going hunt, not the next day in swamp. I call Lex, there’s some ducks up here we got to find. Get you somebody and I’ll get somebody, I’ll go up on this end hunt, you hunt down on this end, then we’ll get together. Well, I killed 3 ducks, but I saw drove a duck circle go away, then I saw another drove circle and I killed 3, one little drove come in and a pair come in and Lex killed 6. He said oh, I didn’t see but a dozen ducks. I said okay, that’s when we got back to the landing. And I said well the only ducks I saw above me, I’ll go back. So I went to the house, got me some stuff to see if I had to stay and I went back and I went right to bed where I hunted and I looked where those ducks going and I listened, nothing. So I pushed my boat over that, cut the motor off, push my boat over to it, then I heard a quack, I tied my boat up and I walked another 50 yards and I heard 20 mile of hen’s quack. Now I didn’t know where they were quacking but I knew pretty close. I said, I there ain’t no way I’m going to run these ducks up. So I left there and I called Lex. I said Lex, come on, meet me at the landing and bring the people. I made him at Sparkleberry early, we went into in this swamp way up in the swamp right in the middle of the ridges and stuff. I said now, you sit right here, take your cue beam and shine it up in the air, well I know where you are. I’m going to go find where them duck are. No, I told him, you go find where them duck are, the waters deep. He jumped out the boat and they went. Then I had him cube him right there, I was scared he would turn it. All of a sudden he says come on, I said guys, let’s go. We pulled up, there he was in knee deep water with a round cypress hole right there, feathers everywhere and that was 20 yards, it was knee deep water and then it was deep water, big creek on the other side. So we sat there that morning and we were so lucky with them ducks came in, we killed them ducks and they came, nobody could see them because they were coming from way up swamp. They weren’t coming from refuge, they’re coming from way up the swamp. And they came there and so we did good and we killed some black duck too. We went out, the next one went right back, killed them again, but we changed the decoys. Put our decoys in the open cypress hole instead of the short bushes there, ducks weren’t doing right so we had to move them back out in the short kill them again. The 3^rd day we were there, we went again and wasn’t as many ducks but we killed some ducks and fellas walked up on us and see where we were hunting. So that was our hunting well.

Ramsey Russell: 3 days of hearing the shooting over there, they knew something was up.

Toy McCord: Yeah. And that’s the only shooting in the swamp. Just because that’s the ducks were coming from the ponds. Ducks were staying on the ponds. I mean, they had bunches, that was the refuge now. Used to be you look down swamp, the ducks were coming up swamp, now then you have to – last years, you had to look up swamp, they’d come off those ponds and come to the end of swamp. And I’m talking about even when the water come up, they wasn’t coming. So it had to get run off, basically, before they would come. Now, we did a lot of research and found out when they were hunting and they hunt the worst days you’d have. If they call for a tornado, that’s when you needed to be in the swamp.

Ramsey Russell: Why is that?

Toy McCord: It’s going to rain hard, you better be in the swamp. Used to be you wouldn’t do it.

Ramsey Russell: Why is that?

Toy McCord: Because mallards don’t like to fly much in the storm, they were hunting, when they said nobody would hunt around them, so not many people be hunting because that was their duck. And that’s some of the attitude that exists now. Well, you all killing my duck, they left my pond, stuff like that. But that happened then, but if you do your homework, you can still kill a duck or two. But you can’t put a price on it because you’re going to spend a lot of time riding and looking and listening, listen to people talk, see a fisherman, have you seen anything? Have you seen a duck? No, I said, but I did run 6 or 7 up right over that little corner over there when I’m fishing, so I go check that corner, it might be something there. So I did a lot of that now. I mean, I spent a lot of nights in the boats. I mean, day before seeing 2 days before the season, being able to – I don’t want to say that I got beat, because I didn’t get beat much, but I did get beat and I didn’t like it. But it was good time.

Ramsey Russell: It sounds like a lot of your success is just attributable to a lot of boat time, knowledge of the habitat, spending a lot of time in watching what those ducks were doing and how those ducks were responding. You spent a lot – it’s almost like you spent 2 or 3 days in the boat for every day you hunted, is what it sounds like.

Toy McCord: Well, that’s right. And I tried to hunt every day, I try to learn something every day. After we hunt, we got the limit of what we come back to the landing, I take everybody’s gas tank and pour it in my gas, and I go scout and see somewhere else and where we can move if we did good or not. Now, that being said, you’re going to think, well, Toy, did he ever work? Well, I played ball, I played ball 7 months a year, and I’d come back and hunt the rest of the time.

Ramsey Russell: So what kind of ball did you play?

Toy McCord: I was playing baseball. I played 8 years and professionally. So I would have all season and I duck hunted and I’d coach football for some of the teams, but I didn’t teach school, so I’d coach football that was afternoon practice, stuff like that. And before duck season, then I played ball. And so I take them last 4 or 5 checks I got, and I put them off, I didn’t even cash them when I was playing ball, I got home. That’s my hunting money and stuff. And now if I did it all over again, I would start putting money up when I was a young father instead of waiting till I was 75.

Ramsey Russell: That’s right.

Toy McCord: But I had killed a lot of ducks, I had a lot of good times. I had the time to scout.

Ramsey Russell: Let’s end this episode talking a little bit about your professional baseball career. Who’d you play with? How’d you get into all that? How did you have time for a baseball career in high school and whatnot at all with all the duck hunt you did?

Toy McCord: My daddy told me to never give up, never quit. So I played football and baseball. I played 5 years of Varsity baseball in high school, and I played 3 years of Varsity football, 4 years of Varsity football. And I was very lucky to have successful careers in all of it. And I got to play into all-star games and stuff like that. And I like that, knowing that I could maybe excel at something, so I would keep working hard at it. So I just took my duck hunting the same way. And then out of high school, I had an opportunity to go a bunch of colleges, and I turned down getting drafted out of, I wasn’t going to sign baseball out of high school. They called me tonight for the draft, told me where they’re going to draft me. And I said no, so I’m going to college. So I was going to go to, I’ll go ahead and say it. Clemson was my first choice for several years, but I ended up going to University of South Carolina. Now I had about all the SEC schools and out up north, bunch of schools I could have gone. And some of them say, well, he’s too small, he’s too slow, he too this, but I was quick. And in other words I went and I played with South Carolina –

Ramsey Russell: What position did you play?

Toy McCord: Well, I was quarterback in high school and the Shrine Bowls and the other all-star games, I played halfback and I played both ways in South Carolina, North Carolina, strong bowl game. I played defensive safety and I played left half back and we won too, by the way. And I had a good game, thank goodness. But in freshman year college, South Carolina came to me and they said they gave me a full football and or baseball contract. I can play either one or both now. Baseball contract, full ride aren’t given very much, mostly the pitchers if they are. But I had a full baseball and/or football. I still got that letter and that thing on my conscience.

Ramsey Russell: What position baseball did you play and which direction did you go in college?

Toy McCord: I played shortstop. And also Clemson offered me a full baseball scholarship. Baseball coach did, nice man. And the football coach offered me a full football. I saw a little fraction there, but they said I could play both. Carolina took the friction away, so you can play both, either one you want, quit anytime you want to, you do what you want, it’s up to you. And I was lucky, I was all ACC and I got to be a couple things, I caught a couple balls, I guess hit one. And I got drafted the end of my junior year by the California Angels. And they come over, they’re going to send me to the rookie league at Idaho Falls and I’ll show you how smart I was. I said, what state is that? He said, Idaho. But now against Georgia, I’d hurt my leg returning a kick, I returned punch to get cost too. Carolina, I played defensive left cornerback and I played defense for sophomore year and some in my junior year, but I’ve played quarterback one game my junior year also. And I hurt my thigh in the last quarter. And I remember a fellow asked me, he says, well, why didn’t you run out of bounds? Well, that’s the 1960s. You don’t run out of bounds in the 1960s, now they teach you to run out of bounds. I was going to cut left up the field, I meant right up the field, there was two big guys coming. Well, I’m going to cut left going down the sideline, there’s only one guy there. And his helmet hit my thigh and it blew up. And I had a long kickoff return there, too. And fellas asked me, said, well, how’d that guy run you down? I said, it’s easy. He knew where I was going, he just cut me off, he knew where I was head. But I didn’t play the next couple weeks. And then the quarterback coach called me, I was at my girlfriend’s house, I couldn’t even go to the game there. They went to Florida State, called me and told me to get back to school, I’m going to play quarterback. I got so excited, I went back and we played quarterback. That game, I got in, we were losing 17 to Virginia. And when I got in, we hadn’t even had a first down, I run a couple options, picked up a first down, got a standing ovation. Wasn’t that wonderful? And then we won the game 24, 23. But in the 4^th quarter, I run an option and got blocked down in front of me, I jumped over, and when I got hit from behind, my left shoulder went into the ground. It’s like somebody hit me electric shocker. I run one more play and I went out, told coach, I’m through. He shook my hand and we had one more game, then the final game against Clemson, I played sparingly at defensive back against Clemson, that last one. And I got drafted, the scout was in the motel room. I said, now you wait. Yeah, I got to go talk to somebody. So I went to the coach’s office, and he was too busy talking to some people. And I told the secretary, tell him I just got drafted, whatever. I was in the magazines to be the quarterback next year already. So I wanted him to say, yeah, man, I’m not throwing back defense. I went 3 times, he was too busy to talk to me. So I went back and I signed with the California. I played rookie league then, I went to class, say San Jose, the next year I played San Jose. And we went davenport in San Jose. Then I went to play for Hawaii. Went to Knoxville, Tennessee, played there a while. Went to El Paso, Texas. It was a good place, really enjoyed that. That was a different culture, I got to learn, I got to go up north to start with. Then I went out west to California 2 years. Then I went right there on spring training, was on the Mexican border, if you walk 5ft, you’re in Mexico. So I got to go over there and eat the Mexico cuisine and play with a bunch of Spanish players in California organization. And I was playing with, I played with the Braves, got to play around Savannah and down home there for a while. And I went to Davenport again with White Sox, then went to Knoxville again with White Sox. I never played in the big leagues, but I played with the team in spring training and stuff. And I played AAA and I was more like a player coach my last couple years. They take some young players in and I played short third, second in center field, left field. But I need to hit first, second or third in the lineup of fourth. And so after 8 years, I went to him and said, listen, let’s see if you can find me a spot such and such, whatever I’m getting whatever. And they just couldn’t find that spot. So I said, if it’s all right, I’m back out, I’m going home. So I came home –

Ramsey Russell: But Mr. Toy, I’ve got to hunt with some folks before and I’ve never hunted with anybody that can hit a fastball that can’t kill a duck. Something about that eye hand coordination at that college level up. You show me a man that can play at that level, I’ll show you a man that can swing a shotgun. Hitting a duck ain’t nothing.

Toy McCord: My partner here told me you were sharp. You didn’t said about 3 things a day. You’re sharp. You right on the bullet. I could take a drove analysis come in, actually, without even looking, I killed three greenheads out of a drove. Now I can’t even shoot 3 times in a drove. But back then I could kill 3 green heads, I could kill the wigeon drake that’s flying with them and 2 green heads over here. But that’s that hand eye coordination and quickness. But now I’m going to scare you now a little bit. It’s going to slow down one day.

Ramsey Russell: Oh, I know. Trust you me, I know.

Toy McCord: But I tell all my friends I remember you and you used to walk a little faster.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, that’s right.

Toy McCord: You ride on the button with that thing and you compete athletically. You’re going to compete hunt. You can compete fishing, I’ve won some fishing contests. So I’m compete whatever I do. Why not?

Ramsey Russell: Speaking about competition, let me ask you this, are you necessarily competing against somebody else or you are competing against yourself? You’re pushing yourself, that’s the way I’ve always felt. It ain’t the other guy I’m competing against, it’s myself.

Toy McCord: I can’t believe you. I just pointed to him, when you said competing, I pointed to myself and then you said, you competing with yourself and I said, you just be careful, I compete with myself.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Toy McCord: Because I ran a football one day in 10^th grade, I thought I had a first down and I lack a deistical little bit. I got back to the huddle they call pump formation. So what do you mean? We got no you a foot short, I had a foot in me. I said, from that moment on, if they ain’t knocked me on my butt, I’m struggling, I’m struggling and I’m going. If I’m fishing, I won the first catfish, the national catfishing title. I came to the landing and I had of one fish, one fish a weather come in, ain’t nobody had no fish, I’m waiting. Next thing I know I’m going back out there and I’m tried with a guy. He comes in, it happened to be my brother, he comes in with it, I had 30 minutes more to go. He’s coming in the way in, the final way in. I said, Donald, ain’t nobody catching nothing that front, come in, cut them off, I said, I’m tired first, can I get a couple rods, some extra rods? Were no rod limit back then. And I’m in a John boat, he’s in pontoon boat, he gave me two rods and I’m pulling off and he hauls, who you tied with? I said, you. I went out there, got on the ridge, what we call Green Island, I think four rods out and I called 2.5lbs. And I won the tournament, first national champions. I didn’t quit though.

Ramsey Russell: That’s right.

Toy McCord: And I fished a striper tournament up this river, I caught two fish all day. Coming back to the landing, coming down the river, saw 10 boats. You all doing any good? Nothing’s bite. So I pulled in, I said, well, listen, I got 20 minutes, I’ll stop, threw the anchor out, threw my first rod out. Before I could get the second one out, I saw the line coming by me. I caught him. It’s about a 13lbs striper. Threw another rod out and caught a 6lbs. I said, I’m doing pretty good, now I’m going in. When I got to the landing, the way in, 2 guys got out with a big tub, couldn’t hardly carry it, went up to the top. Another guy got one of them big coolers with two striper tails sticking out the side, couldn’t close it, went up there and weighed. I said, they don’t need me weighing in. I said, well, I fished, I’m weighing. So I threw my fish in the cool, I drugged my cooler up there. The fellow with the big tub had all flathead catfish. The guy with the two striper tails out almost was successful, what he did, he caught two stripers. He had a bunch of catfish under it. He’s hoping people would go back. So I wanted to turn, I didn’t quit. On the weigh in, I still had 15, 20 minutes after them rods out. So if I’m going to duck hunt, I didn’t get that duck didn’t come. So I had to change the way I’m calling. I’ll change my cadence all the time during a hunt at a certain duck I’ll call a certain way. But I look for that some kind of little movement. Not the lead duck always, some kind of little movement. Any duck in that drove, if he makes a movement to something I say, I sit on that. If I say and he moves on the, I’ll just say and pull him out of that drove and he’ll come out of that drove. I do stuff, somebody would say, listen to that rookie over there. But I’ll do all kind of things, I have a regular chuckle, I have a high speed, I have a long chuckle, I have to do different things. I’ll do anything to get that duck to turn.

Ramsey Russell: Hold on, I want to continue this conversation in another episode. Mr. Toy. Folks, thank you all for listening to this episode of MOJO’s Duck Season Somewhere podcast. We are going to return next episode with more legends of Sparkleberry Swamp. Mr. Toy, McCord, see you next time.

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