A shiny silver band glistening in the morning sunlight caught the local duck hunter’s attention right away as he walked to retrieve a downed blue-winged teal.

The sight put a big smile on the face of Tyler Templeton, a Catholic High School senior who makes every effort to hunt and fish when he isn’t in class, studying or playing off guard for the Panthers. He has made the most of getting outdoors every day during the long holiday break, including the morning of Dec. 28.

“I saw the band on the foot from about 15 yards away. You could see it shine. I was so happy,” Templeton said that evening.

The LSU-bound student-athlete — he was accepted a few weeks ago to the state’s flagship university – definitely was in his element earlier that day while duck hunting with a friend, Landon Hardy, and three of Hardy’s relatives near Henderson. Hardy’s lease has a pond, a wooded area and a field.

Templeton wore camo and covered himself with Higdon Outdoors Blind Grass, purchased earlier that week at Lafayette Shooters, to conceal himself further in the field without much marsh grass. The birds moved bright and early.

“Mallards and wigeon landed in the decoys before legal shooting time. They landed 10 feet from me. I could have almost grabbed them,” Templeton said with a chuckle.

His duck hunt was over within 30 minutes. He got his six birds, including the banded blue-winged teal.

“I think it was the third bird of the morning. Two of them (blue-wing teal) came in and I knocked both of them down,” he said about the banded duck.

The female duck was banded In Port Barre. It was hatched in 2022 or earlier.

How excited was he about the band?

“When I saw the band on it, I Facetimed my buddy (Hardy), who was hunting in the timber hole,” he said.

That Templeton was so pumped up over the band is a testament to his enthusiasm for hunting and fishing. After all, that was the fourth banded duck he’s knocked down with his Beretta Xtreme 12-gauge shotgun loaded with 3-inch No.2 shot shells.

One of his banded ducks is up for debate. If it’s his, he has harvested two wood ducks and two blue-winged teal.

“I actually shot a banded duck over there before today, on opening day. (But) I don’t know, it was either me or Landon,” Templeton said, noting they both swung and shot on the same duck.

Templeton said he has no plans to mount the latest banded duck.

“No, I already have banded teal. I took the band off. I think I’ll start putting them on my call lanyard,” he said, noting he uses a duck call made locally, Robert Minvielle’s True South Custom Calls.

The hunting party killed a five-man limit – 30 — of ducks the morning of Dec. 28.

Templeton, Hardy and another duck hunter hunted the lease the day before and killed 18 ducks. After the trip, Templeton decided against visiting another friend that afternoon, hooked up the Gator-Tail, which doesn’t have a trolling motor, then drove to Cypremort Point and caught his 15-fish limit of speckled trout on Matrix Shad under a Four Horseman Popping Cork drifting across The Cove.

On Wednesday morning, the senior scored 15 points and grabbed eight rebounds in a 64-57 overtime win over the Teurlings Rebels in the prestigious St. Thomas More Sunkist Shootout. The Panthers later played host STM and dropped a two-point game to the perennial Lafayette powerhouse, 47-45.

The 18-year-old son of Parker and Carrie Templeton has juggled the team sports schedule and got after the ducks and speckled trout as he has done throughout high school. The all-around outdoorsman shot a buck while deer hunting several months ago in West Texas.

He also hunted last week around Hardy’s camp, saw five does and an 8-point that he wasn’t able to get a good shot at it so didn’t pull the trigger.

Still some quality holiday time left outdoors for Templeton.