DATE: Sunday, November 16, 1997             TAG: 9711130325

SECTION: CAROLINA COAST          PAGE: 6    EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: COVER STORY 

SOURCE: JEFFREY S. HAMPTON, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: KNOTTS ISLAND                     LENGTH:  108 lines

'TIS THE SEASON FOR DUCK HUNTING STARTING MONDAY, HUNTERS WILL FLOCK TO THE OUTER BANKS TO BAG BIRDS ON THE SOUNDS.

WHEN GROVER GORE returns here for the 30th straight year, he hopes the north wind blows so hard and cold it will nearly peel the skin off his face.

He wants the waves on the Currituck Sound to batter the boat and kick a frigid spray over the dog and decoys. The hunting guide will have ice crystals gathered in his beard as he motors toward the blind. Bundled in a hooded sweatshirt and insulated coveralls, Gore knows he'll be warm enough not to freeze.

Besides, when the ducks set their wings and come gliding into the decoys, who cares how cold it is?

``There's not much better than going duck hunting early in the morning like that,'' said Gore, a lawyer from Southport, N.C. ``It recharges every battery you've got in you.''

This year brings extra promise of good shooting. Experts predicts 92 million ducks will migrate through the United States this winter, the most since 1970.

``If we get some cold weather, we'll kill some ducks,'' said John Barnes, owner of Barnes Hunting Lodge on Knotts Island. Barnes, 63, has guided hunters for 50 years. His father before him started the lodge in the 1920s when hunting was always good. If the ducks are out there, Barnes and one of his five guides will bring them in. That's one reason Gore likes to come here every year.

Droughts in the 1980s dried out the nesting potholes in the United States and Canada. Waterfowl numbers dropped drastically. But heavy rainfall in the 1990s has helped them to rebound.

Biologists made lofty predictions last year, but it never got cold enough to bring waterfowl south to Currituck. Relatively few ducks arrived in the Currituck Sound, historically known as the ``sportsman's paradise.''

``They called it paper ducks,'' Barnes said of the positive reports.

Because of the high waterfowl counts this year, daily bag limits increased from four to six and the season was extended from 50 days to 60 days. An early four-day season was held the first week of October. The main 1997 duck season runs from Nov. 17 to Jan. 20.

Increasing both the bag limit and the season length is extremely rare, said Bob Noffsinger, area biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

``The idea is when you get better habitat conditions, then that's the time to harvest more birds,'' Noffsinger said ``You want to take advantage quickly.''

The dry cycle may return at any time, and duck populations may fall again quickly, he said. When the numbers begin to fall, then the limits drop and the season shortens. During some years in the 1980s, the season shrank to just 30 days.

Gore continued to come even during those lean years, much because of the experience at Barnes Hunting Lodge.

Barnes operates one of the last of the true hunting lodges where hunters stay overnight and eat traditional Southern cooking. The chance to eat homemade fried chicken, red-eye gravy and biscuits is almost as attractive as shooting a bunch of ducks.

``Husbands and wives both work now, and they don't have time to cook like that anymore,'' Barnes said. ``They love it.''

The old lodge, built more than 100 years ago, was once the Barnes family home. The furnishings are as simple as they were when Barnes' father started guiding in the 1920s.

A large round table accommodates 10 hunters. They sleep in single beds, two each in the five bedrooms.

``It's not the Holiday Inn,'' Barnes said. ``But we don't charge Holiday Inn prices either.''

For $235 a day, two hunters can stay in the lodge, get home-cooked meals and spend the day in one of 13 blinds with a guide and a full stand of decoys. All they have to provide is their guns and shotgun shells. Barnes recommends bringing at least two boxes of shells.

About 10 years ago, Barnes quit hunting over the old wooden decoys. They were worth too much. Some of Barnes' old decoys have been appraised at hundreds of dollars. He buys the oversized, ``magnum'' plastic decoys now at $25 apiece.

The guides will set about 85 duck decoys, 12 geese and eight to 10 swan decoys around the blind. The ducks go on the downwind side of the blind and the geese and swans sit upwind.

Canada geese are still off limits in the Currituck Sound, but the geese decoys help draw the ducks, Barnes said. With a permit, hunters can shoot one swan during the season. This is the first year Barnes has ever used manufactured swan decoys. In the past, they've been made at home from wood, wire and canvas.

Hunting is best during the cold weather because the ducks come farther south down the Atlantic Flyway. For that reason, most hunters want to go out in late December and January.

``From Christmas on, I'm booked solid,'' Barnes said.

Rough water keeps the ducks restless and flying, which increases the chance to get several good shots, hunters say. If the day turns out to be a ``bluebird day'' and the ducks are sitting comfortably on the still water, then it's time to pull out the deck of cards, brag about some of the old hunts and snack on homemade fig preserves and loaf bread.

Gore increases his chances of a good shoot by always scheduling the first Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday in January to be in Knotts Island. He's brought his 27-year-old son with him for the last 17 years and usually brings a few business friends along.

Gore has kept a record of every hunt he's had in every blind in the Currituck Sound for the last 30 years - the ducks killed, the weather, the names in the hunting party, everything. He gets excited just talking about it.

``I've hunted all over the Currituck Sound,'' he said. ``I don't know of any place in the world more ducky than Knotts Island.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by DREW WILSON

John Barnes, owner of Barnes Hunting Lodge on Knotts Island, says

he'll use manufactured swan decoys on the Currituck Sound for the

first time this year.

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