“Dude, you killed a duck with your face.” Those were some of the strangest words I can remember speaking to a man. I said those words to Elite Series pro Bill Lowen during an Elite Series tournament on Lake Amistad in 2009.
We revisited that day while sitting together eating crawfish with Chris Lane and several friends on Sunday night, while celebrating Lane’s win on the Sabine River.
What you should know, is Lowen and I have been duck hunters our entire lives. We’ve talked a lot over the years about our duck hunting adventures. Being from Ohio, Lowen chased them up and down the Ohio River bottoms to the Great Lakes, along with trips to different southern states every year. And in Arkansas there is a saying, “Every child is born with a duck call in his mouth.” Maybe not all of them, but I was born such a child.
My history with ducks and fowl that inhabit bodies of water all over the United States has somehow stretched to more than 40 years now. Don’t know how many I’ve whacked with a gun…let’s just say probably more than most normal people. I have tens of thousands of photographs of ducks on hard drives, and spent hundreds of days just about anywhere a duck can be hunted, from Chesapeake Bay to California, Canada to Mexico. Mine has been a love, hate relationship with ducks.
There was a time I hated on them so bad: If there had only been one left, I wanted to be the guy that whacked the last one, and actually thought it would be cool if it caught on fire falling to the ground. Whatever it took to put all we duck hunters out of our collective, addictive misery.
And if you ‘bird lovahs’ want to have a go at me in the comments section, I’m good with that. Have at it. But ducks have cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars, five or six jobs (not nearly as good as this one, so it’s all good), about 20 kind of decent girlfriends and nearly a wife. For 20-plus consecutive years, about the only day I would take a day off from duck hunting would be a Sunday when my wife would ‘guilt’ me into going to church, where I should have parked in the spot reserved for visitors.
But now understand the duck gets his revenge in a variety of ways. He often resides in the most miserable of places, and thrives in the most miserable weather and conditions. So the man that pursues him every day must be borderline stupid, hopelessly addicted, or more than likely, both. I’ve often said the most ornery critter on earth is a United States Marine, or a hardcore duck hunter. I’ve talked to Bill Lowen enough to know he is such a man. He has suffered his own misery many times over in pursuit of a duck, so maybe his face met just a bit of justice that day on Lake Amistad.
He was speeding wide open across the lake, and I see him coming towards me and ready my camera to photograph him speeding by. It all happened very quickly. I’m seeing it through a large lens, which makes you lose a bit of depth perception, but I’m also hearing it. 
What I see through the lens is Lowen driving his boat, then something suddenly flying through air. My first thought is his cap must have flown off.
But what I’m hearing is a sudden scream and the sound of the motor shutting down. I had been ‘panning’ the camera following him running at 70 miles per hour, so when he shut down I temporarily lost him in the lens. When I move the lens back to Lowen I see he’s holding his face in his hands. And I can also see something lying in the water directly behind the boat.
As I troll closer to check on Lowen, it’s all coming together. Just when I thought I had seen a duck get whacked in every conceivable way, I suddenly realized I had not. The object lying in the water behind Lowen’s boat was not his cap; it was a floating, expired duck that had met his demise after meeting Bill Lowen’s face at 70 miles per hour.
One last note to add:
What I’ve called a duck that met Bill Lowen’s face was actually a coot. They say a coot is not technically considered a duck. It resides in its own sorta sub-species…kinda like Aaron Martens. And I mean that in a loving way. They are both just very unique creatures, and there’s no way you could know everything about either. We just accept and love them just the way they are.
And finally, and we’ve all done it….the next time you go flying through a huge flock of coots in your boat, don’t forget to ‘duck.’
Editor’s note: While a duck was harmed in the telling of this story, Bill Lowen escaped unscathed.
