The indelicately named
Wackum and Stackum Guide Service seems to hint at the marketing needs of
Kevin Corry better than it explains his approach to waterfowl hunting.
"The passion now is not in
killing birds but in working birds, in getting them to cross that
invisible line, so you know you're directing them,'' said Corry, 43, who,
if results mean anything, works a goose call like a maestro works a baton,
like B.B. King works a guitar, like Oprah works her flock.
A command performance must
be how ducks and geese
hear it, but it's more a siren's song that brings individuals and groups
winging in from the sky to claim front-row seats among the decoys near
Corry's blinds. Admission has its price, because the next sound the birds
hear -- the whack 'em report of a 10- or 12-gauge shotgun -- often is the
last sound.
Those who think virtuosity
can be claimed by sounding like an entire flock of
geese are
honking to the wrong audience, Corry said. Such might be the stuff of
contests judged by humans, but it's not necessarily the vibe needed in a
blind boat when a distant flock with a mind to quell the munchies is
looking for a landing spot.
Effective calling isn't
much about bringing a group of geese
cruising a quarter-mile away to within 100 yards of the blind, Corry said.
It's about closing the final distance to a shooter's range, about sending
a signal as the birds close in that piques their curiosity.
"Many novice hunters tend
to get too vocal, get too quick,'' he said. "I sometimes see them blow the
birds right out of range.''
Inherent talent aside,
learning the correct way to play a duck or a goose comes with observation
and practice. Corry, who grew up in Grove City, got his early training on
the Scioto River below Columbus several decades ago.
His expanding regular
repertoire came to include the duck-heavy western Lake Erie marshes,
particularly Sandusky Bay, and the goose-bearing farm fields of Guernsey
County, south of Zanesville. The Dublin resident, a part-time
waterfowl guide for about 10 years, lost his day job not long ago and,
with the blessing of a supportive wife, found new life as a full-time
guide and an online merchant of waterfowl-hunting gear.
"I'm a believer that when a
door shuts, a window opens,'' Corry said. "Losing my job was the best
thing that ever happened. My one regret is that I did this 20 years too
late. This is something I've wanted to do my whole life, but you always
are thinking about the security thing.''
Decidedly less secure
nowadays are the feathered flocks which have to contend with Corry and his
customers on a more regular basis than in the past. Although Wackum and
Stackum has been moving its early-season base on Sandusky Bay to the
second-season Guernsey County goose haunts, the rules stay pretty much the
same by water or by land.
Anticipating the restart of
the waterfowl season Saturday, Corry not only has been sprucing up the
sleeping quarters and adjusting the mobile blind, but he's been spending
the week watching birds move to where they gather. He calls it marking the
X spot.
"That's 90 percent of it,
finding where the birds are,'' he said. "You can do a lot of things wrong,
but you can be successful if you hunt on the X.''
As a guide, Corry said, he
takes the time to do the required scouting that many of his customers
can't take because of their work schedules. In addition, he's built
relationships with farmers who open their land to him but might be
reluctant to do so with a stranger.
Booked through December,
Corry said he has a few openings in January. Some of his clients come from
out of state, including Alaska. The notion of leaving untamed Alaska for
the hunting in human-altered Ohio ordinarily might seem odd. Not so with
Canada geese,
which come in a variety of subspecies large and small.
Alaskans don't "have the
giants, they have the lesser (Canadas),'' Corry said. "Instead of going
after 4- or 5-pound geese,
they want to go after geese
that weigh 14 or 15 pounds.''
To contact Wackum and
Stackum Guide Service, phone 614-873-8073 or send e-mail to
kevin@wackumandstackum.com.
Information is also available at the following Web sites:
wackumandstackum.com and huntthex.com
outdoors@dispatch.com