The Amazingly True Story of How Adrian Got His One And Only Wood Duck

The following is the absolute truth.  Something that has not been told until now.  A gigantic white lie has been told in it's place.  That is, until now. 

This story starts years ago.  It's starts with a morning out duck hunting.  Dad and I went to Cockroach Bay, and shot 3 blue and/or green wing teal.  I'm a little fuzzy on the details, but I remember we brought back three teal.

To get home we would take I-75 North to the last Tampa exit which was Fletcher Ave.  As we would drive West on Fletcher Ave we would pass Lettuce Lake Park.  That's where the real story begins. 

You see, Dad and I were talking about all sorts of various things, mostly baseball, the outdoors, and hunting.  Dad was in the middle of a sentence when this happened.  Dad was saying something like, "Blah, blah, blah, AND THAT WAS FUCKING WOOD DUCK!!!!"

He then proceeded to swing the truck into the left lane, and then into a left hand turn lane.  He did all of this in one motion from the right hand lane, mind you, with the truck pulling our duck hunting boat.  He then went back East, and did another U turn.  He drove on the shoulder of the road where he pulled up to a dead wood duck on the side of the road.

As he was driving he proceeded to tell me he saw a wood duck on the side of the road, and it looked like it was in perfect condition.  So I jumped out of the truck with a towel in my hand just in case it was a bloody mess.  I picked it up and it was perfect.  Perfect.  It had amazing colors, and not one feather was missing.  It seems that it lived at the Park, and was either flying/walking near the road when it got hit by a car.  It was stiff, so that meant it was a few hours dead, most probably hit during the early morning.  However, it only had two ants on it, so that let me know that it hadn't been there long.

I brought it up to Dad, and showed him how good a shape the duck was in.  I was very careful with it, and put it into the freezer as soon as I got home.  We wanted to get it mounted, but we had to get Mom's approval as taxidermy is expensive.  So we told her a little white lie.  We had just come back from duck hunting right?  We had three teal, and one wood duck.  We had 4 wood duck decoys right?  So it stood to reason that the Wood Duck went to the Wood Duck decoys, and I shoot it, right?  That makes perfect sense.  So that's what we told Mom.  She was more than happy to okay us getting the duck mounted.

We took it to our world famous taxidermist, Gene Dobbs.  He said of all the Wood Ducks he had seen, that one was the second best one that had come across his desk.  He got it done in a quick amount of time which was nice.  As famous as he was, he always had a backlog of work.  But he decided one day to do every duck he had, as he was getting behind in his work, so the Wood Duck got done early. 

And now for the moment of truth, or should I say, moment of proof.  Here's the pictures of the Wood Duck.