Darrell Skillern, of Cove, an avid sportsman and duck hunter, recalls when he first met Morgan LaFour. He was just a lad and living with his folks in Channelview at the time. His dad and a friend, Henry McNulty, or Mr. Mack as Darrell called him, took him along on a trip to see Morgan LaFour in Wallisville to negotiate a duck hunt. At that time, Morgan was charging $5 for day hunts and $3 for kids. Times were still tough during those days and Darrell’s dad was having a hard time justifying paying that much for a hunt when he had always hunted for nothing. They headed back home that day without closing the deal. They made two more trips with the same outcome. Halfway home after the third trip Darrell said to his dad, “You’ve already made three trips over to see Mr. LaFour, why don’t we just hunt.” Darrell said his dad wheeled the car around, headed back to Wallisville and sealed the deal.
Darrell said Morgan would hook all the hunters boats up like cars in a train and pull they snake-style down a cut in the Trinity to the back of Lake Charlotte. “The stream was navigable then,” said Darrell, “but you would probably not be able to navigate it today as the mouth is silted up and too shallow for most boats.”
Morgan would pull the boats to the first blind and the last boat in the train would untie and row over to his blind. Morgan would repeat the process until all the hunters were settled.
Morgan’s blinds were completely covered with cane on all four sides with a small opening on the side where you entered. Darrell said he would make them with a cane overhang where the boat would be concealed. Inside there would be benches all around and open on the top. Darrell said he was so young on this first hunt he could not sit down to hunt, he had to stand.
Darrell’s dad was not too impressed at the end of the hunt. You see, his dad loved “yellow feet” mallards and all they bagged that day was pintails, teel, and gadwalls, but for Darrell, it was the beginning of his love affair with duck hunting.