Middle son, Jordan and I celebrated the opening of the 2016-2017 Hunting Season in 93 degree weather as we sat 100 yards from each other in a sunflower field dove hunting last Saturday. For as long as I can remember, this is how I have spent every opening day of hunting season … sitting in a field under a blazing sun. Growing up, my father never missed an opportunity to carry me hunting and when Cindy and I were raising our sons, I tried to do the same.Jordan and I were guests of Billy Deviney, one of my fellow Commissioners on the board of the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries & Parks. Billy is one of the finest people you will ever meet. He grew up and still lives in Clinton. When he was in his thirties, Billy bought back the construction company his father had sold a decade earlier. Billy turned that small company into a massive powerhouse that now employs 1,500 people in several states. And at 71, he hasn’t slowed down. Billy not only oversees the daily operations of his company, when hunting season arrives, he hunts non-stop, often flying around the country and world hunting and at the same time never missing a beat running his business.As the hours passed and the sun started the fall, the birds began to fly. This year I traded guns with Jordan and for the first time since I was 16 years old, I hunted with a 20 gauge shotgun. It was as accurate as my 12 gauge, but the wonderful thing about a 20 gauge is that they don’t kick at all which made my hunt far more enjoyable. I have grown tired of shooting guns that knock you down. Rediscovering the 20 gauge will be a game changer hunting birds.Jordan got the limit and I came close to it. We took our time driving home from Sunflower County where we were hunting and I got in a good visit with Jordan. That is rare these days as Jordan is going into his junior year at Ole Miss and like older brother Thomas, who graduated this past May from MSU and now lives and works in Jackson, Jordan seldom comes home. The years Cindy and I spent raising these boys flew by too quickly and I miss those days. Some advice to those who are still raising small children: savor every moment regardless of how trying it can be at times because those days fly by at lightening speed.In the coming weeks, deer and squirrel season will open, followed by duck season. Good times are ahead for our family when the holidays arrive and we are all finally back together in our small cabin over at Donaldson Point Hunting Club. And, this year, it will be time for 14 year old daughter, Travis to learn a thing or two about hunting and the woods. I can’t wait!
Scott Coopwood is a seventh-generation Deltan who lives in Cleveland, Mississippi with his wife Cindy and their three children. Scott is the publisher and owner of Delta Magazine, one of the South’s leading lifestyle publications, the Delta Business Journal, the first business publication in the Mississippi Delta; and Cleveland’s weekly newspaper, The Cleveland Current.
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