The whistle of woodies rings the flooded field as Sean Hendley finishes setting up the decoys.
“Those birds aren’t going to care about two widgeon,” Alex Harvey whispers to Hendley from the buckbrush next to me. “It’s shooting light. Let’s go!”
To my left, I hear wings, and a pair of wood ducks fall from the pink sky behind us into the dark backdrop of the oaks on the shore. By the time I bead them, I think my swing might carry me out over Hendley, so I pull my cheek off the stock and watch the two birds flare and sail away to the west.
“Big ducks, overhead,” Bryant Leaphart down the line to my right hisses. Hendley crouches as his lab, Brew, whines looking at the sky.
We all watch the half-dozen widgeon buzz west, then north, followed by a pair of mallards, and disappear.
“I didn’t think we’d be seeing big ducks,” Leaphart smiles, and rips a line of throaty hen calls. Our heads are all on swivels as the flurry of first light fills with possibilities.
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The Mississippi River Delta is a mosaic of expansive agricultural fields growing cotton, soybeans, peanuts, and corn interrupted by ribbons and patches of cypress trees and oaks. The entire region is woven together by the rivers, creeks, backwaters, and human-made lakes funneling water from the center of the continent to the Gulf.
This rural landscape is an epicenter for Black landownership. Histories of farming cooperatives, key moments in the Civil Rights movement, and the celebration of culture through Blues legends such as Charlie Patton, Robert Johnson, and David “Honeyboy” Edwards are evident in most every town.
The Delta also boasts one of the richest hunting and fishing traditions in America. Iconic hunts for migrating waterfowl following the great path of the Mississippi, catfish, bass, and bream cruise cypress roots, large deer numbers with impressive bucks tempt big game hunters, and the unique small game opportunities for the cat-sized swamp rabbits all make the Delta a bucket list destination for many hunters and anglers. But for locals, these opportunities are their everyday passions.
“The outdoors is the culture of the Delta,” said Harvey, founder and owner of Legacy Land Management and a fifth-generation outdoorsman. “Hunting and fishing are what the folks here love to do, and it’s also how they feed themselves. You can walk in almost anywhere and start a conversation about hunting and fishing and it will last all day. That’s the sort of place this is.”
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First light was followed by missed shots on widgeon, mallards, and wood ducks. We all received our fair share of ribbing for the collective’s poor performance. Leaphart and Hendley had done all the work of trucking their decoys and laying out the spread, and I felt sorry our precision hadn’t matched their effort.
In the 8 a.m. lull, Harvey began detailing what this property could become through deliberate management. The gears of his land manager mind are always turning.
“This is a good spot,” he said, looking up through the buckbrush that shielded him from the east. “That peanut field over there is good, and there’s some duckweed. I even noticed a few young persimmons over in the woods where we came in. But this property could use a management plan to add some more cover and forage. Some more beneficial trees and shrubs where the peanuts would be flooded out.”
A licensed forester in three states, Harvey focuses his work on helping disadvantaged communities across the South, primarily Black landowners and other people of color, enhance the value of their properties by implementing conservation measures with support from United States Department of Agriculture programs included in the Farm Bill.
“If a landowner is able to make conservation improvements on their property, they will likely be able to utilize it more,” Harvey explains. “Better conservation practices mean more rabbits, ducks, and deer. More animals mean better hunting, and that means the landowner and their family will spend more time hunting there. They grow more connected to the place. The land becomes more than something they pay taxes on once a year.”
Historically, lack of funding, legal barriers, and explicit discrimination often excluded Black and other disadvantaged landowners from participating in conservation programs. But recent efforts from Congress and the U.S. Department of Agriculture have lowered these barriers in programs like the Conservation Reserve Program, Environmental Quality Incentives Program, and Agricultural Conservation Easement Program. This improved access to funds and planning support enhances working lands for the benefit of wildlife and, in turn, raises the value of the property.
“There is a lack of education for many landowners when it comes to what programs are available,” continues Harvey. “Cost is a big deterrent for landowners, and if I can act as the mediator between them and the funding opportunities, it becomes more appealing. Everybody wins. The landowner can receive funding for their land, the agencies put their dollars where they are supposed to go, and I can continue my business in helping these lands become more valuable wildlife habitat.”
A buzz draws our eyes skyward, and a cloud of green-winged teal descends into our unaware laps. The tiny ducks swerve and rise high after a volley of shots. A lone drake falls to Hendley’s well-placed pellets at the far end of the line, but no one else is so fortunate. After an hour of waiting, the commotion of such a large flock leaves our group a little startled, and again, we grin at the absurdity of our missing. Then, three of our grins waver as a pang of jealousy arrives while we admire the perfect plumage of the January drake Brew retrieves back to Hendley.
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Harvey’s work leverages Farm Bill conservation programs that are administered by the USDA to conserve and restore fish and wildlife habitat, expand hunting access, and build resilient farms and ranches. The Farm Bill is the single-largest source of private lands conservation funding for our country, providing roughly $6 billion annually through voluntary, incentive-based programs that benefit landowners, wildlife, and outdoor recreation.
Unfortunately, the 2018 Farm Bill expired in 2023, and extensions have also fallen short. This means that programs and funding that must be updated remain stagnant, harming farmers and other food producers, as well as hunters and anglers.
The Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership has worked with its 27-member Agriculture and Wildlife Working Group to create key priorities for Congress to include in the updated Farm Bill. These include increasing funding for conservation programs so more landowners can participate; making sure the programs create measurable benefits for fish and wildlife; and including support for voluntary, incentive-based private land access programs for hunting and fishing.
From North Dakota to Mississippi and South Carolina to Oregon, private landowners, land managers like Harvey, and the hunters and anglers who rely on these acres and access all need an updated Farm Bill to advance the work of private land conservation. TRCP is working diligently to help pass a Farm Bill in 2025.
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The morning passed as mornings do. White-fronted geese moved in massive “V” formations across the sky, and the light lengthened until shadows shrunk with the midday sun. A hen merganser and a coot were added to the strap.
“Good ducks came by, but they got the poor shooting,” Harvey laughs as we pick up decoys. All of us noting that we probably didn’t need this big of a spread for the hunt.
Around the trucks, we eat lunch to fill our bellies that feel that much emptier after a morning standing knee-deep in water.
“There’s always tomorrow morning to get after them,” says Hendley as he rubs Brew behind the ears.
“There is for a few more weeks,” replies Leaphart.
“Then it’ll all be memories of all the misses until October,” Harvey laughs.
We join in laughing, though we all understand that misses won’t be bothering Harvey when he’s working through the long days of Spring and Summer helping landowners conserve the Mississippi Delta.
Learn more about Alex Harvey HERE.
Learn more about TRCP’s work on private land conservation HERE.
Learn more about the Farm Bill HERE.
