1. Yes, it’s a greenhead mecca. But goose-packed
small waters and endless DIY opportunities
make the Plains a fowling wonderland.
WORDS BY JOE GENZEL / PHOTOS BY HARD CORE BRANDS
Hard Core’s honky tonk tour bus pulled through the gates and
we stepped off just in time to bear witness to one of the most amazing sights
in all of duckdom. Thousands of white and dark geese—and mallards too—
poured out of a small lake over a tree line into a winter wheat field not 50 yards
from the water’s edge. Our group stood around an early December campfire
in stunned silence, deafened by the cacophony of snows, Ross’s, specklebellies
and all manner of Canada subspecies.
Then the man who built this treasure,
grinned, took a sip of his favorite cock-
tail and said it: “Welcome to Monday
at Hooray, boys.”
Eric Dunn owns Hooray Ranch
and teamed with Hard Core, putting
their products to the test every day of
the season. The HC guys film videos
and hold launch events in this fowler’s
paradise, keeping things stateside and
simple in a place they now like hunt-
ing more than venturing to Canada.
It’s easy to see why.
Owner really isn’t the right title for
Dunn, the former electrician turned
outfitter. He’s more like a big brother,
cracking you up over the biggest steak
you’ve ever tried to eat one minute,
then filling your coffee cup the next,
making sure you’re all squared away.
Hooray is in the middle of Kansas
west of Wichita. If you drove through,
it would be hard to believe this is one
of the best places to kill waterfowl in
all of North America. I don’t say that
just because Dunn has the ducks. He
does. Kansas does. In fact the state is
packed with DIY and public opportuni-
ties. But more on that later. We limited
on greenheads the first morning on
one of his many impoundments in
25 minutes and were eating Brookies,
these wonderfully delightful brownie,
chocolate chip cookie, caramel artery-
after the infrastructure contracts for
one of the biggest coffee joints in the
known world. You know the one on
every street corner in every metropolis
in America. Selling a portion of that
business, he made his millions. The
land he had scouted growing up was
within reach, and Dunn started buy-
ing it piece by piece, acquiring water
rights as well, which in the drought-
stricken West are more valuable than
any stretch of farmland.
The result is over 11,000 acres (and
counting) of thriving waterfowl habitat,
where hundreds of thousands of birds
roost and loaf on waters from tapped
wells. To describe the amount of ducks
KANSASfor
clogging combinations, before 8 a.m.
What makes Hooray great is what
makes anyplace great: the people. Yes,
Hooray is expensive and elite, but it
is not elitist. Dunn grew up here and
was on the same side of the fence you
and I find ourselves on most days, until
he wasn’t. And it’s probably the only
place on earth you’ll see a millionaire
mopping the lodge floor every morn-
ing, because it “beats the hell out of
sitting in a cubicle.”
Always the worker, Dunn also saw
an opportunity while busting his ass
for someone else. He split from his
employer and became a contractor, but
not like you think. He ended up going
HOO Y
60 WILDFOWL Magazine | April/May 2015 wildfowlmag.com April/May 2015 | WILDFOWL Magazine 61wildfowlmag.com

2. and geese on these properties is frankly
impossible. The sheer numbers left
me speechless more than once. I’ll
put it to you this way: There’s a guy
at every duck club who pipes up and
says “that’s nothing,” when a guest
sees a massive wad of birds for the
first time. Take that guy to Hooray
and shut him up.
GOOSE GLORY
Randy Hill of Hard Core needed
more shells. Someone passed him a
box of Speed Ball and was rebuffed
“That ‘aint enough. I need the whole
case.” You know that cliche’ when
someone gets angry “they see red.”
Well, I think Randall had seen green,
black and white; as in mallards, specks,
Canadas and snows, and he NEEDED
more ammo.
We were in a make-shift stick blind
on the edge of a 50-acre lake, kneel-
ing or sitting on small folding chairs
meant for high school cheerleaders. I
took a second to look around as the
biggest mega wad of geese most of us
ever laid eyes on tornadoed over 500
dark and white HC floaters and field
full-bodies. Every man had a call or a
fist just away from his lips, muttering
between clucks and groans. “Oh my
God, this is the biggest flock, oh my
God, let’s shoot them, Oh. My. God...”
It was a late start. Daylight had long
come by the time Randy pulled us into
a desolate field off another one of rural
Kansas’ infamous sand back roads. Ap-
parently since human populations are
so sparse west of Wichita, the expense
of pavement is considered a luxury.
“These guys ever heard a black top?”
Randy chided as we Tokyo drifted like
a sprint car through the gate.
Hill and I began jabbering about
how backwards we thought Kansas
waterfowling was. Both of us are from
Illinois, where there’s big rivers and
deep water-filled rock quarries and
heated ponds from nuclear plants that
keep the birds content in the harsh-
est of winters. Lots of water. But in
central Kansas, you might see a small
pothole amongst the wheat, beans,
corn and now cotton. It’s supremely
odd to anyone who grew up shooting
ducks on the river. A lot of the hunt-
ing is done in fields because of a lack
of water access.
So we tooled around to the back
of this property past rusted out cars
and the remnants of what used to
be a pair of small homes. The lake
looked like an Oreo cookie. Canadas
and specks on either end, snows in
the cream-filled middle. It suddenly
dawned on me: This was a roost! My
hunting buddies back home would
never speak to me again if they found
Hooray for Kansas
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3. out about this. But in Kansas, where
water is at a premium, hunting the
roost is OK...if it’s done right.
The first thing you have to do is let
all the birds leave of there own voli-
tion, don’t push them off. Since there
were upwards of 80,000 on this little
50-acre lake, that took a while, even
though we didn’t show up ‘til 9 a.m.
Then you set up as fast as you can
and wait for birds to return, picking
them off in small groups, which is how
our morning started—specks, lesser
Canadas and a few greenheads, some
snows and Rossies later in the day.
After an hour or two, I moved out
of the permanent blind into the stick
hide along the sandy shore. A few
larger groups had started to cup in
and Eric called us over as they were
finishing to our right. That’s when the
muttering started. A huge, huge group
of geese led by a 747 honker spiraled
in like a giant flock of snows. Now in
most cases, you let this many birds
land not to educate them. But this
particular lake was one of the largest
bodies of water in the area, outside
of a reservoir, so the geese have to
come back to it eventually. And since
Hooray has other impoundments,
this water could be rested more than
a week easily.
At 20 yards the front of the group
splayed their feet out in front them,
show up in pickups and trailers, but
the benefits are undeniable if you
time it right.
First the area directly west of Wichita
is rife with birds. You’re going to have
to do a ton of scouting if you’re not
from the area, but look at Google Earth,
find the water sources, sit next to them
and then follow the birds to the fields
so you can set up on them the next
morning. Dunn said some farmers
are asking guys to pay to play, but it’s
usually no more than $100 per gun,
less than most outfitters will charge
for a day afield, and few can put you
on the type of shoot you will find in
central Kansas.
While you’re driving around scouting
the big flocks look for small potholes,
most of them have a few limits of
almost like a giant reclining goose
Barcalounger. The kill’em cry was more
like a death cry, something right out of
a Crusades battle. Ten guns rose and
20-plus birds splashed the water, dogs
were everywhere. More waves came,
more geese hit the deck. We pulled
zip ties out and started stringing limits
together: “six Canadas, two specks,
OK you’re done on dark geese, now
we need the snows.”
After one of the last flocks came
in and repeated the same scenario,
Eric grinned and called out, “what
kind of day is it at Hooray?”
Just another Wednesday.
YOU CAN DIY
Not everyone can afford
Hooray but Dunn and his
guides, who are like the
Yankees of calling and kill-
ing, have duck hunted
all over Kansas, a good
mix of public land and
door-knocking. To
be honest, the state
is seeing more
and more guys
greenheads on them, especially if
you’re there in December and Janu-
ary (if there’s open water). When we
were driving back from our morning
mallard shoot, guide Randy Young (a
door-knocking specialist if there ever
was one) saw such a spot. “I’ll probably
try and get permission on that,” he said.
Situations like these are exactly what
you should be looking for. It doesn’t get
any easier; a couple floaters, motion
decoy, jerk string and you’re in busi-
ness. Hunting water in this region is
advantageous because there’s so little
of it and the birds want in.
If you’re striking out on private land,
just head over to Quivira National
Wildlife Refuge, which hosts as many
as 2 million birds during the fall mi-
gration, or Cheyenne Bottoms, which
also holds hundreds of thousands of
waterfowl. Both are open to hunting
and most Kansas public locales have
a lengthy amount of helpful informa-
tion for hunters. For example, before
heading to Hooray I did some research
and went to Kansas’ DNR site (kdwpt.
state.ks.us). Having hunted public land
in Illinois, where you can’t even get
an updated map of the stake sites, I
was shocked to find such extensive
reports. I clicked on Cheyenne Bot-
toms and there was even a newsletter
that detailed how many teal were
shot during the early season broken
down by pool, so you could see the
best places to hunt! Locals must hate
that this information is made public,
but take advantage of it. By the way,
the 2014 teal season harvest was over
10,000 birds at Cheyenne—a 4.32 bird
per hunter ratio.
There’s also a bevy of upland habitat
(prairie chickens, quail and pheasants),
turkeys, whitetail, dove fields and more.
You just have to check out the DNR
site for a list of fee-to-hunt controlled
shooting areas (CSAs). The landowner’s
name and number are listed. Kansas
also has a convenient smartphone app
called iSportsman, which allows you
to purchase hunting permits, sign in
and out and register your harvests
electronically without the hassle of
calling in or driving to a check station.
And if you go during deer season,
look up the Hunter Referral Pro-
gram—it puts hunters in touch with
landowners looking to control their
deer population.
Back at Hooray, the majesty of the
trip was soaking in: the birds, games
on the big screens, steaks the size of
the ‘Ol 96er and late-night longnecks
with friends, new and old. Since it was
nothing like I had ever experienced—
hunting or otherwise—there’s difficulty
in finding the right words to explain
how grandiose the place is. The last
morning Dunn shook my hand and
asked: “Well, what did you think?”
I paused and stuttered, “It...it was
so awesome I don’t know how to
describe it.”
He just smiled and slapped me on
the shoulder, “That’s what Hooray is
all about.”
I think Randall had seen green,
black and white; as in mallards,
specks, Canadas and snows, and he
NEEDED more ammo.
April/May 2015 | WILDFOWL Magazine 65wildfowlmag.com
Hooray for Kansas
64 WILDFOWL Magazine | April/May 2015 wildfowlmag.com