A young outdoorsman has hunted ducks most of his 23 years with a fervor, an obsession, an intensity unmatched, for the most part, in many others his age.

“That’s my bread and butter, right there, duck hunting,” Saint Schwing said last week.

If duck hunting is his bread and butter, then wild turkey hunting, which he began four years ago, is his meat and potatoes, with gravy on top. The New Iberian has killed nine wild turkeys and successfully called in about half-a-dozen of them for others.

The Catholic High School graduate, who works for Tides Medical in Lafayette, got his hands on three turkeys this year, thus closing in on wild turkey hunting’s coveted grand slam by getting two Merriam’s earlier this month in Nebraska. The grand slam involves killing each of the four subspecies found across the U.S. — Rio Grande, Eastern, Merriam’s and Osceola.

Schwing lacks the Osceola but doesn’t lack the want to go get one next spring in Florida.

Mostly, Armond and Jennifer Schwing’s son just enjoys hunting season after hunting season each year. It’s been apparent since he was a boy when his mom would drive him after school Friday to the Calumet Cut boat ramp to be picked up in a boat driven by his dad for a weekend of duck hunting the Wax Lake Outlet.

“I like getting away from it all and being in nature. I like the challenges it presents,” Schwing said about his passion for hunting.

His hunts for waterfowl, sandhill cranes and turkeys, etc., have taken him to public lands in six states other than the Sportsman’s Paradise. Those are neighboring Texas, Mississippi and Arkansas, plus Kansas, Oklahoma and, now, Nebraska.

Hunting public lands appeals to him the most. He encourages other hunters to try them, also.

“They should. They should. We have all this public land all over the country. It’s free. It’s amazing, the opportunities, the people you meet. I’ll never stop hunting it. Never,” he said.

His wild turkey hunting adventures continued May 10-14 when he went to Nebraska.

Schwing and his hunting buddy, Jordan Breaux of Baton Rouge, met in Tyler, Texas, hopped in the latter’s pickup truck and traveled to northwest Nebraska, the only region in the state that has Merriam’s wild turkeys.

The New Iberia outdoorsman shot his first turkey the first day at the Nebraska National Forest. Breaux bagged his only turkey the third day while hunting “walk-in” property in the region. Later that day they moved over to the scenic “badlands,” where Schwing killed his second turkey on the Oglala National Grassland.

“It was awesome. Killing the turkeys was only part of that trip. Just being able to go out there and experience that is why I go,” he said.

It snowed in the northwestern part of the state for four straight days before their arrival. They met veteran wild turkey hunters from Missouri, Florida, North Carolina and Alabama who said the hunting was “rough” and very slow because it was so cold late in the spring.

With Benelli Super Black Eagle in hand, Schwing found “a pretty good spot” the first day after two hours of hiking but had no takers to his mouth call.

“I fully expected to walk for miles,” he said.

At his second stop with Breaux, while he was warming up his mouth call, he heard something yelp back at him. He thought it might be a hen but still sat down quickly.

Schwing looked in the sound’s direction and saw a Merriam’s tom walking toward him, 15 minutes after he got there. He was nervous and missed with the first shot from his 12-gauge shotgun.

“It was running and about to take off (fly). I shot again and rolled him,” he said.

The Louisiana hunters were very, very happy and celebrated accordingly.

“Everyone on that mountain knew I killed a turkey. Those big birds are a lot bigger than a Rio and Eastern,” he said.

The second day was all hiking and nothing else. Breaux was losing hope.

Before going out the third day, Schwing said, “He was kind of distraught because we had no luck the day before. I told Jordan, ‘Don’t get down.’ ”

They went to a spot that day with plenty of wild turkey sign. As they walked they heard a gobble.

“We ran in and got probably 100 yards from him and sat down. We just sat there and he came in. It was beautiful. He came in strutting and gobbling right in front of us. I think it was 30 steps” away when Breaux shot, Schwing said.

After 5-mile hike back to Breaux’s pickup truck, they traveled to the badlands on the edge of a huge prairie. The hunters got out and soon saw a group of about 30 turkeys around a mountain and heard one gobble.

“I got on my knees behind a Scoot-N-Shoot decoy. I actually had hens walking 2 feet from me. That turkey’s head went from blue and white to red and he ran straight at me. He wanted to fight,” he said, noting his second Merriam’s was 10 yards away when he shot.

The grand slam of wild turkey hunting is within Schwing’s reach. He has three of the four subspecies that roam North America.

Like Joe Burrow, the elite quarterback who led LSU to the national title in 2019, counting touchdown passes on the fingers of one hand, Schwing can hold up three digits if he was so inclined, one for an Eastern, one for a Rio Grande and another one for a Mirriam’s. He got his second Eastern wild turkey March 22 around Natchez, Mississippi, on a hunt with Breaux.

He’s looking for the fourth, an Osceloa, to reach his goal.

“I’d love to get a grand slam … if everything falls in place. Some people do it in one year,” he said, noting realistically that isn’t possible for him because of time and money considerations, plus the fact he concentrates on public lands.

“I need an Osceola down in Florida. It is where I plan on starting off the turkey season next year, South Florida.”

Schwing probably faces the biggest challenge in his bid for the grand slam when he travels to target Osceolas next season in Florida. Florida’s public lands typically are overcrowded with hunters, thus making that public land option the toughest part of the quest, according grandslamnetwork.com.

How does Schwing get around Wildlife Management Areas and other public lands he’s never seen in his life during hunts across the South and Midwest?

He goes out and returns with the aid of the onX Hunt, a GPS app founded in 2013 by Eric Siegfried of Missoula, Montana. OnX changed the industry by providing hunters across the country with comprehensive digital maps for 985 million acres of public land.

Of course, he said, there isn’t always have service in the remote areas he hunts. If that’s the case, he believes a map of the area can be set offline on the cellphone for reference.

“Most of the time if I don’t have service I throw the phone down (puts it away) and just wing it,” he said.