FIGHTING BAYOU
While many consider duck hunting a religion, Fighting Bayou is the only hunting club
that can claim “The Benediction.” The ritual begins when members and guests gather
at the rest lake, cocktails in hand, to enjoy a social hour in the afterglow of a Mississippi
Delta sunset. Defined as “an invocation for divine help, blessing and guidance, usually at
the end of a religious service,” the word “benediction” perfectly describes the clubs
sunset ritual. Bubba Tollison, Fighting Bayous own “Delta poet”, coined the term and with
a story of luck, friendship, family and many, many ducks, Fighting Bayou indeed
seems the beneficiary of divine guidance.
Like many hunters Mississippi hunters,
Arthur “Skipper” Jernigan, Billy Van Devender, George Lotterhos and Bubba
Tollison grew up dreaming of hunting at Fighting Bayou, the fabled duck
hunting club near the Delta hamlet of Ruleville, a speck on the county map
known as Booger Den. Skipper and Billy, friends since junior high school,
played football and hunted together throughout high school where they
met George Lotterhos, a team member and fellow outdoorsman. The trio
signed football scholarships at Ole Miss and soon found fellow hunting
fanatics among their roommates and teammates. Billys roommate Archie
Manning became a life-long friend and a favorite guest at Fighting Bayou.
Bubba Tollison, Skippers freshman year roommate, shared his passion for
hunting and has been duly crowned Fighting Bayous storyteller-in-residence,
historian, spokesman and Duck Doctor.
On winter weekends at Ole Miss, the boys traveled two hours over country
roads to hunt the bean fields and cotton fields surrounding Fighting Bayou.
To shoot their limits, the friends wallowed through the gumbo of mud and
water that characterizes the rich Delta farmland. Bubba fondly recalls those
rag-tag hunts with “sounds like the Battle of the Bulge” coming from nearby
Fighting Bayou. “I knew I would never have a hundred million dollars or be
President of the United States”, said Bubba who grew up only five miles from
Booger Den, “but my dream from age thirteen was to own all or a part of
Fighting Bayou.”
By the spring of 1987, the dream was suddenly within reach. When the
owners of Fighting Bayou fell on hard times and decided to sell the property,
Travelers Insurance held the mortgage and contacted Billy and Skipper about
leasing it. Although it had fallen into disrepair with no food for the ducks,
they accepted the offer. Killing only two ducks in the thirty-day season that
year it became abundantly clear that the best was yet to come. After a year of
cutting wells, cleaning boat trails and instituting water management, Fighting
Bayou re-emerged as a successful club. To their amazement, Travelers allowed
the group to carve out the land they wanted to buy and financed the sale in
1988 at “the price of an overflowed bean field.” Still establishing their careers
and young families, it was a stretch for the group of friends to buy up the
memberships they couldnt initially sell so one partner bought six shares.
Today memberships are highly coveted and to underscore the success of the
club Billy VanDevender recounts, “there have not been any memberships to
change hands in the last 17 years.”
Shrewd land and farm management have cemented Fighting Bayous status
as one of the Souths most important hunting clubs. Making their way down
the Flyway ducks are attracted to Fighting Bayou because of its favorable ratio
of wooded forest to flooded timber, allowing them a place to roost as well as
feed. The propertys 100,000 oak trees ensure that it retains its wooded feel and
583 acres of rice fields guarantee there is always plenty of food. Only half of
the flooded property is hunted and the 160-acre rest lake is always off limits.
Fighting Bayou benefits from a sophisticated water control system that allows
the property to remain flooded even during unusually cold winters, like the
2009-2010 hunting season. Conservation biologists estimate that 67-80% of all
ducks that come to Mississippi will spend some time at Fighting Bayou.
Hunting at Fighting Bayou takes place only five days a week, with rests on
Monday and Friday, to take pressure off the ducks before and after weekend
hunts. A card draw after dinner decides which groups will hunt where in the
morning. To the uninitiated, the draw appears rowdy, serious and highly
competitive, but according to Billy, “The draw is actually all about posturing.
Its all in good fun.” While there are no guides, Brent Garrison, Fighting
Bayous club manager extraordinaire has been calling and caring for members
and guests for over ten years. As the members pondered his potential tenure at
their coveted retreat it didnt take long for Bubba to convince his team, ““He
cooks better than Justin Wilson. He can go in the front of a John Deere tractor
and come out the back and fix everything in between and he can sing like
Garth Brooks. What in the hell else could you want?”
Hunting groups usually consist of two members and two guests with one
caller. While certain members of Fighting Bayou take calling very seriously,
bad callers are handled with tact. Bubba explains, “I am not going to work
my brains out to get this place ready to hunt and have my guests out there
and somebody sounds like hes blowing a damn trombone. Ill say ‘You dont
have the right tone, how about letting me handle calling for you? ” Invitations
to hunt at Fighting Bayou are prized. Proficient callers or not, everyone who
hunts at Fighting Bayou appreciates the sport involved in waterfowl hunting
and the care that club members put into the management of this special
land. As Skipper puts it, “Everything involved in a good duck hunt—he
camaraderie, the calls—ts just the best time there is.”
Fighting Bayou members are committed to passing along their love of the hunt
to the next generation of outdoorsmen. With emphasis on sportsmanship and
teamwork during the hunt, young hunters are also schooled in the notion,
as Billy says, “Everything that you do in a hunt means something. All of the
young boys that Ive seen grow up hunting at Fighting Bayou have turned
out to be fine young men.” One of those young men who grew up at Fighting
Bayou is Eli Manning. Billy, Skipper and Bubba schooled Eli in their favorite
sport. “Its been fun to see Eli mature as a hunter, to learn how to handle his
gun,” Billy said. And while he still spends some weekends at the club, as any
football fan would imagine, “hes been pretty tied up the last couple of years.”
Members agree that because of their long, illustrious hunting careers, they
now, “get a bigger thrill out of taking a kid who doesnt have access to a place
to hunt …maybe a kid, like we were growing up, whos laying out in a bean
field with bags of decoys trying to kill a duck. We want to show folks what a
special place weve got. Weve got a good reputation and we want everyone to
see the place because its real special to us.”
This welcoming spirit extends to the clubhouse, which was rebuilt in 1998 with
accommodations for 40. Members design their own rooms and those who
choose can reside in the “geriatric wing.” While the club has a ten-member
limit, extra beds mean that all family members, including wives, feel welcome.
Skipper explains, “As weve grown older and our children have grown up at
Fighting Bayou, its become a family place for us. As the kids got older and
came with us, our wives started coming too. Its just evolved that way; it never
was a rowdy place. “
Fighting Bayou has hosted a number of non-hunting related events including
wedding receptions, rehearsal dinners, Ducks Unlimited dinners and even a
Junior League retreat. While different from some hunting clubs, the emphasis
on family life makes sense considering that Billy, Skipper, Bubba and George
have been friends, teammates and hunting buddies for over 40 years. Billy
explains that Fighting Bayou has been such a special place because it has
allowed, “our families to grow up together.”
Every dinner begins with a blessing. “Nobody eats without saying a prayer and
thanking the good Lord for this place and helping us to make it better,” Billy
said. The blessing emphasizes the importance of faith in the life of Fighting
Bayou members. Several of the group attend the same churches and all value
the spiritual and social fellowship that Fighting Bayou provides.
Fighting Bayou has grown to represent much more than simply land with a
hunting lease. Because of this, Skipper explains members “do everything that
you can do to protect it. Weve placed nearly 2000 acres in the wetlands reserve
program and put a conservation easement on the whole property so that it
cant be developed. It will always be like this.”
From its serendipitous beginnings to its current prominence as one the Souths
finest duck hunting clubs and all of the stories in between, members of Fighting
Bayou recognize that in the words of resident raconteur Bubba Tollison, “the
way things came together wouldnt happen again in 150 years.”