Eric is an Environmental Scientist/Habitat Conservation Biologist for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife in Southern California. That is where he grew up and lives today. His work focuses on wetland permitting/conservation programs. He spent some time talking with me about growing up in SoCal and his life as a die-hard waterfowler, which was born out of the father-son bond he shares with his dad. Eric has a great passion for waterfowl and is exactly the type of fella you would want to share a blind with. – Corey @Splitreed
I reached out to Eric after I came across a post of his about his father and what his father had done for him by simply teaching him responsibility; by placing a shotgun in his hands at the tender age of eight years old. Doing so, as Eric eloquently put it, “[set] the table for me to become inspired to learn everything else.”.
By doing so his father set in motion the opportunity for a young boy from Southern California to become an outdoorsman with a most profound enjoyment of nature and waterfowl hunting, matched only by others with the same sort of upbringing and connectivity to the out-of-doors.
The fondness Eric has for duck hunting is so innate in him that in talking to him it seems quite subtle, yet at the same time very profound. It’s inherent. It’s instinctive. It’s intuitive. It’s the same with so many waterfowlers, and likely in many more people- they just haven’t had the exposure to it. Without the opportunity to experience a hunt they may never know, either- they may never be whole without the chance to live for even just one day as a hunter as so many generations before were daily.
SR: The work you do now as an Environmental Scientist- did you follow that career path because of the hunting in your upbringing?
Eric: Oh yeah. Huge factor- hunting was super pivotal for myself and how my life has turned out and what I’m up to now-a-days. I don’t think without hunting there is any way I would be doing what I do today.
SR: How has living in CA changed since you were a kid?
Eric: Growing up with my dad and being influenced to be outside and experiencing what SoCal had to offer in the mid 90’s, I think that’s what really triggered me to get into this field: seeing all the development that had occurred up and down the state. You used to see dairies and AG fields all around. Now it’s just warehouses. I feel like I’m part of the last generation in the area that had an idea of what used to be.
SR: How did your dad get into hunting?
Eric: My pops is an immigrant from Thailand and Laos and he came here in high school. His family farmed rice back home and did everything by hand as well as with water-buffalo as beasts of burden. They lived off the land farming, gathering and hunting/fishing. His friends say the first time they met him on a refuge, he came out in a white tee-shirt, blue Levis and white tennis shoes, looking to hunt ducks! “Who is this guy?!” they said. Over time and with hunting buddies he figured it out.
Erics love for the hunt started with his father, which is true for so many of us. Something about being a part of your dad’s thing. His favorite way to spend his time. Love and respect for your father gets you into it, and the true experience of the hunt when you finally take part is what gets you hooked.
SR: First hunt?
Eric: I remember being super stoked that I finally got to come with him [his father]. Pretty much my whole childhood we played the refuge game exclusively- no private land hunting. I remember hunting shows on TNN or TNT back in the 90’s and that was my exposure, that and some Duck Commander VHS tapes.
I used to steal my dads decoys and would put them in the front yard, and hide in the bushes. Believe it or not but I would be in the bushes and pigeons would come in and decoy over the floaters!
That first hunt I got to be a part of, I remember sitting in the dark and hearing what I thought were jets pass by overhead. I watched Top Gun a lot as a kid and was really into jets. The sun was coming up and I heard the sounds and it was a group of green-wings. I remember my dad dropping one and going to grab it and I was immediately hooked.
Eric went on to say, “Every chance you get in Fall- that’s where you want to be. I played sports but where I really wanted to be was out in the marsh.”
Corey @Splitreed: I’ve spent years hunting the California refuge system. People who aren’t from CA usually don’t imagine it as much of a hunting state- but it really is a great waterfowling destination with a seven bird limit and a 107 day season. Aside from that, where else can you shoot a mallard, a greenwing teal, a northern pintail, a cinnamon teal, a gadwall, a shoveler and a wigeon all in one day? Not to mention the diver ducks, the snow geese and the specklebelly geese. However, the refuge system and public land hunting opportunities are hit-or-miss and can be heavily trafficked causing a combat-style hunting feel, where you might set up on a pond only to have someone move-in just before daylight and set up at the opposite end of the pond you staked your claim in.
SR: You’ve been hunting for a long time then?
Eric: Eric: My dad got me to get my license when I was in third grade! I’m not sure I even passed the class at hunter ed, but I did get my certificate. He set me up with a 28” barrel 12 gauge and three shells right out of the gate.
SR: First duck?
Eric: My first season, on a junior hunt. I had missed A LOT through the season. It was a local refuge hunt, and even with just one week (between regular season close and the post-season junior hunt) of the birds not being harassed- they were very willing to work. I musta shot a couple boxes of shells just missing everything. Good big ducks. I was super bummed. Near mid-morning this duck came in low and plopped right in the decoys and my dad had me water-swat it. It was a fully plumed drake ruddy duck!
SR: Favorite style of hunting?
Eric: Small water greenheads. Gotta be. I love the challenge.
SR: Shitshow stories?
Eric: Any given day on a refuge! It’s become a “norm” to encounter issues on the refuge. One that still hurts to this day- I was in 8th grade and hunting a blind on a refuge. A group of honkers came out of nowhere on the horizon right at our pond. I gave them a few clucks with an old Zink call, and they start maple-leafing getting lower. They cut into the wind to cut our way and drop into the decoys and a few seconds later they float over another blind.. Those guys unloaded on them at about 90 yards and hit nothing but did flare them into the next county.
SR: Remember hunting before social media? Before Duck Dynasty and Instagram? It’s changed since then quite a bit out in California hasn’t it?
Eric: We used to be able to walk onto the refuge, we could get on anytime. Obviously we need more hunters but I just don’t want them in my pond haha. Often I’ll make the drive to hunt somewhere I know I can hunt instead of playing the refuge game.
SR: What are you doing in the waterfowl offseason?
Eric: I’m big on bass and crappie fishing, big on Turkey hunting too. Always been into fishing. We used to float tube a lot carolina-rigging crickets for big bluegills as a kid! I got into Turkey hunting after college, and the interaction with calling turkeys is what got me hooked on ‘em.
SR: If you could hunt legally for one day without limits, regulations or restrictions would you do it?
Eric: I would. But if it were a day where ANYONE could, then no.
SR: Cool hunt story?
Eric: Hunting a sod farm, hammering wigeon. Gotta get green everything and stay flat in the decoys. There’s some guys in the NW part of the state where some guys hammer Aleutian geese off sod farms. Panel blinds work pretty good in a sod farm too.
SR: Special bands or birds that make a good story?
Eric: I think the best band story I have is from a few years back, opening day refuge hunt- it was my fiances first hunt. We didn’t scout the area but I talked to the area manager and he pointed us towards a greenhead roost pond. Early AM we snuck up and jump shot the birds out. My dad, my brother and myself all missed all three of our shots, but my fiance dropped her first duck- a hen pintail.! The amount of birds that got off the pond nearly blacked out the sky!
After that we set up our decoys and tucked into our cover. About 20 minutes later the birds started to trickle back in small groups. A group of mallards came in and we shot a couple. One of them was banded! This continued on throughout the morning and we ended up killing a bunch of ducks, three of them being banded greenheads.
I ended up meeting some of the California Waterfowl Association (CWA) folks a couple years later and brought it up because the banding certificates had said that CWA were the banders of those greenheads. Turns out that all three were part of California Waterfowl Associations Egg-Salvage program! The eggs had been rescued from nests on hayland before cutting, then raised, banded and driven down to SoCal and released by CWA.
We ended up hunting that same pond two months later- and shot a banded gadwall that was also from the egg salvage program!
Another cool story- I have some friends that got into Ross geese in California’s North Valley on a hunt and they ended up with 5 bands and 3 of those geese were fitted with backpack GPS units.
SR: You hunt over a dog? What does it mean for you to hunt with your dog?
Eric: Two dogs, we’ve got an older yellow lab and a younger fox red lab both trained by myself. My brother actually won our yellow lab during a junior hunt raffle, in 2009. The yellow is half English lab and half American lab. The fox red is a full American lab. They’ve totally blown me away with how much they have it in them to naturally be hunting dogs.
Hunting with them adds an element where it gets to the point you might not even want to hunt without them. I remember Drake the DU dog as a kid, and really wanting to get one myself. The first duck my dog picked up- I was so proud. There’s many times when I know I wouldn’t have found a bird without my dog, those moments are really special- like where you lacked, they make up for it. Can’t imagine a season without one.
SR: Biggest waterfowl purchase?
Eric: Never had any crazy orders. Probably just buying a duck-truck, then putting a shell over the box to keep gear safe. Probably gonna get those Sitka waders though.
SR: Ways waterfowl hunting has affected your life positively?
Eric: I always say it’s important to have a passion. To have an outlet. Something to love that’s outside of your family and your work. It adds identity. The most positive way is probably how it’s connected me to the natural world. I feel like hunting is this intimate, primal experience that you don’t get when you go hiking or bird watching. It opens up a whole new perspective that other people can’t have or understand unless they experience it.
SR: Ways waterfowl hunting has affected your life negatively?
Eric: Haha just that I’m stuck thinking about it all the time.
SR: Favorite way to eat waterfowl?
Eric: Favorite is probably a simple sear, skin on breasts cooked to medium-rare. Brined first then seared in a hot pan. Specks and Mallards preferably. My mom has a great fajita-style duck taco recipe too. I keep it simple but I dig it. I’ve heard good things about the sous-vide too.
SR: Why do you hunt?
Eric: I think I hunt because.. It’s not because I only eat what I kill but it’s also the things you see and hear and feel when hunting. I know I can’t get that doing anything else. That connection with the natural world, to my dog, friends and family, my dad. That all together is why I hunt. The connection to the birds. When you’re hunting it’s easy to look back through a window into past memories, and creates an expectance for whats yet to come. The day that I don’t wonder, or have hopefulness for that next best hunt, is probably the day I don’t want to do it anymore. That all together man. I think at one point when you hunt enough it just becomes part of who you are and to deny that would be denying yourself. It’s just hard to imagine not doing it.
