First bird gets an exclamation point

Published 1:30 am Sunday, September 22, 2019

GUEYDAN — After the shot rang out the morning of Sept. 14, Aaron Ogea of New Iberia heard an enthusiastic exclamation from the young duck hunter, an exclamation similar to one he heard several years ago.

“I shot him, papa!” Peyton Ogea, Ogea’s 12-year-old son, said after bringing down the first duck of his duck hunting career, a blue-winged teal on opening day of the special teal hunting season in Louisiana.

It seemed like just yesterday that Peyton, tagging along on a waterfowl hunt on a foggy morning, exclaimed, “You got him, papa!” immediately after Ogea fired and hit a snow goose that was flying below the fog near Whiteville in St. Landry Parish.

Both times the words were music to his ears. The second time was sweeter.

“I loved it, too, watching him shoot his first duck. He was very excited. To watch him drop one, it was very exciting. The word of the day was ‘satisfying,’ ” Ogea said this past week.

“I have taken him along … he has been in a duck blind many times before. This was his first time duck hunting, shooting a duck.”

The Ogeas were hunting the special teal season opener with a friend of the family’s, Troy Romero of New Iberia, and his son, Tucker, 12, on Romero’s family property near Gueydan.

Of the 11 blue-winged teal that went into the bag that morning, three fell into the marsh after the youngest Ogea pulled the trigger of his Beretta 20-gauge shotgun, his father said, proudly.

“Of course, Tucker made good shots, too,” he said.

That was what it was all about.

Ogea said, “We were really trying to make it all about the boys — teach them good hunter safety, develop good habits” and, of course, introduce them to some of the most exhilarating wing-shooting known to man.

The 40-year-old Edward Jones financial advisor was unable to return to the duck blind Sunday but the two boys went with Romero. The first day’s shooting barrage in the area apparently had an impact on the migratory birds’ behavior because there were fewer targets to aim at.

Ogea, who was born in Covington but moved to New Iberia at age 5, found out first-hand about the second day of the special teal hunting season. There was a lot of hunting pressure, he said, fewer blue-winged teal came in and, overall, they weren’t moving around as much, he was told by his son, who knocked down one teal, and the Romeros.

He had the pleasure of being on hand for his son’s first duck, which meant the world to him. Just as it meant the world to his own father, Reggie Ogea of Covington, former pastor at Highland Baptist Church in New Iberia.

“I probably started around the same time as Peyton, when I was 12 years old, with my father. He got me into hunting ducks,” Ogea said. “He hasn’t hunted ducks in a long time but I’m still an avid hunter. I love it when it comes to ducks and big game.”

Ogea said he is looking forward to next month when he makes what has become an annual fall trip over the past half-dozen years to hunt ducks and geese in Canada.

The boys will try to squeeze in as many duck hunts as possible while playing junior high school football for Highland Baptist Christian School, where Peyton, a sixth-grader, plays guard and defensive end, Ogea said. They had a game on Wednesday.

The state’s special teal season, which whets the appetite for the “big duck season,” ends on Sept. 29.

Louisiana 2019-20 waterfowl hunting season begins Nov. 9 in the Coastal Zone and the West Zone and Nov. 23 in the East Zone.

To a man, the Ogeas and the Romeros, plus hundreds of other waterfowlers in the Teche Area, are counting the days to the regular-season opener for 2019-20, whatever it may bring, including hearing some more enthusiastic exclamations.