By Slate Lambert

When you hear “Miami,” you probably picture beaches and a bustling city. However, this could not be further from the truth for Miami, Missouri. The city of only 175 people is roughly 1,400 miles from the real Miami, so there is little opportunity for tanning unless you lay out on the banks of the Missouri River. Miami is not a sprawling metropolis; instead the entire city limits encompasses only 403 acres, or a little less than two and half Robins Campuses.  

Armed with these facts, you may be wondering what would draw a person to the middle of Missouri. The simple answer is ducks. Miami is just downstream from the famed Grand Pass Conservation Area. This refuge is known to house many birds during their migration southward. This concentration of ducks draws many hunters every year, many of whom hunt at the nearby Habitat Flats.

The Habitat Flats Grand Lodge. Photo credit: Habitat Flats.

Habitat Flats is a guided duck hunting lodge (sort of like a resort) owned and operated by Tony Vandemore, who is highly regarded in the duck hunting community. Habitat Flats has two properties in Missouri. They have their main lodge in Sumner, Missouri, and a second in Miami, named The Grand. The Grand is the newer of two.

Accompanying my dad Mike Lambert and four friends, I went to The Grand for a three-night, three-hunt stay last month. When we arrived at the lodge, we were greeted and shown to our rooms, and then began to wait for the rest of the guests to arrive and dinner to be served. After all our introductions, we sat down and enjoyed our first meal and prepared for the morning hunt. 

The first morning’s wake up call was around 5:00 a.m., after which I enjoyed some hot chocolate and snacks before making our way out to the duck blinds. Our party of six was split into two groups for the first morning, and each group was assigned a guide and their dog.

Loading up into the Polaris Ranger ATVs, we made the ten-minute, blistering cold ride to the blind. The first morning, my group was hunting in what is called a pit blind, a sort of a steel trench.

Once you arrive at the blind, you typically relax and wait for the guide to put decoys out and prepare for the hunt. This is an aspect of duck hunting I really enjoy, so I went out and helped our guide set the decoy spread. After getting all set up, you have to wait until 30 minutes before sunrise, which is the start time set by hunting laws. Meanwhile, birds were coming in and landing in our freshly laid decoy spread. 

Sunrise from the blind. Photo credit: Slate Lambert.

One of the best parts of duck hunting is the natural beauty behind it. I have had the privilege of seeing the best sunrises and sunsets while hunting, and this hunt was no exception. When you looked out in front of the blind, there was a large hill right out front, and all morning we watched as the sun got higher and higher over the hill. The few trees in the area had already lost nearly all of their leaves, exposing the differences in the landscape from Virginia. The landscape consisted of rolling hills with corn fields and rows of trees between them. As you got closer to the river, the hills flattened out and were replaced by man-made wetlands called impoundments.

After watching the sunrise and birds sitting among the decoys, it was finally time to start. We had birds wanting to come in the entire morning, enticed by a call from the guide. As the first birds came in, we learned the struggles of shooting from a pit blind, as you have to open flaps over your head to get out.

On the watch for ducks. Photo credit: Slate Lambert.

The limit of six ducks per man per day does not sound like many birds; however, harvesting 18 birds for three people can become a drawn-out task. My group stayed out till 10:30 a.m., ending our limit with a large group of gadwall. Once you meet your limit, you head back to the lodge and wait for the rest of the groups to finish up, and then lunch is served. At lunch, we learned that our group was lucky enough to have the best hunt that morning, meeting our three-man limit of 18 birds. The other three of our six-man party had only shot one bird that morning, so they headed back out in the afternoon after some lunch and a nap. 

At the end of the day, once all the groups have arrived back at the lodge, guests are given the option of what they want to do with their birds. The options are to have the birds cleaned and take them home, or they can be donated to local community members, like food banks. We chose to donate our birds to needy members of the community so as to not waste our harvest.