William Walker Davidson for SPLIT REED
Born in Pine Bluff, Kirk McCullough grew up fishing the Arkansas River with his father, going every chance he got. He fished the river with a cane pole and minnows, for fun and for food. His dad loved to fish and that was where Kirk’s love for the outdoors began. Fishing trips with his father kindled a flame that burns brighter than ever to this day. His father would take him to squirrel camp on the White River, where Newt McCullough and his friends who worked the railroad would squirrel hunt for weeks at the time. Growing up there gave him an opportunity to learn how to use the lay of the land to navigate, which is the same way he did in the flooded woods for so long, only using a compass to tell wind direction. Kirk is the kind of man they don’t make any more of. He has hunted waterfowl all over the United States and Canada. He guided waterfowl hunters, mostly on public land, for 23 years. But if you ask him, he’s just a good ol’ country boy that still loves to hunt and fish.
Of all of the time spent in the outdoors, none compared to the desire that began with his first duck hunt. Aged 14, his Uncle Scotty took him and his dad on the Arkansas river and they went duck hunting. Kirk recalled, “We did not even see a duck, but I just got hooked… I just wanted to keep going.”
“When I was 16 I started duck hunting on my own, by the time I was 19 I duck hunted every day I didn’t work and I started guiding when I was 22,” he said. One of the greatest hunting memories was when he worked on a minnow farm and the owner let him and a buddy hunt there. They shot a mess of ringnecks in fifteen-degree weather and were as proud of those ducks as any. “To this day, I can still remember the sound of those ringnecks coming in, like jet airplanes.”
The following year he got a dozen carry-lite decoys for Christmas, his uncle bought him a shotgun, his other uncle gave him a few boxes of shells, and he purchased his first duck call for $6. As he kept going and going more and more, he loved it more and more, and he started to get better at it too. Kirk told me that he takes a lot of pride in starting on his own, with no one showing him the way, “it means more in the long run and you don’t forget what you’ve learned.”
When he started hunting the flooded timber in earnest, it was with some of his dad’s buddies. This did not last long however because Kirk was uneasy about the way they hunted. They were shooting his limit for him which he really did not appreciate, but they were also tree topping. At the time he did not know what it was exactly, but he knew he did not like it. And from then on he decided he was going to shoot ducks the right way.
Kirk then told me about how he worked jobs that allowed him to hunt at much as possible and did whatever it took to make ends meet.
“I worked for the county and they would let me off all winter, they used the surplus money to put back into the budget and I would always have the whole winter off to guide. Once duck season was over I went back to work. I commercial fished when I was younger working for the county and working for my father in law as a farmhand and I just did that to make ends meet. I’d take my fish and sell them to my local places, most people bought them right out of my boat. Especially the buffalo, everyone liked the buffalo for the ribs and to me, it’s the best eating fish in the water. The selling point of my fish was that they were still alive when I sold them.”
For those familiar with duck hunting in Arkansas, hunting flooded timber, and the cut-down duck call Kirk McCullough is someone whose name comes up often, especially when the conversation turns “how many ducks do y’all think he has seen die?” For those that are not familiar with him and the story of who he is, continue to follow along as this author attempts to pay tribute to a true duck hunter. Kirk is a man that has made lots of friends over the last 40 years duck hunting, and a few enemies as well, but that’s just the way it goes when you guide duck hunts on public ground.
After speaking with him for this interview, it is clear that his passion is bringing people along and showing them things he has to learn on his own. He started guiding because he wanted to help give people the opportunity to kill ducks and it allowed him to hunt every day, which sounds like a pretty sweet gig. After seeing so many that did not have someone to teach them or somewhere to go, he wanted to help. However, that quickly changed, “I started off as a kid not sleeping at night because I was excited about going hunting, I loved it that much. But, it turned into a damn nightmare….” is how he put it.
He has not guided a hunt in 20 years.
In the coming weeks, we will continue the story of one of the best duck hunters to ever do it.
Check out Kirk on Instagram. To purchase a call, use his website http://www.cutdownduckcalls.com/ or send him a DM!
To explore other Faces in Waterfowl, check out our collection of articles here.
