“Meet me at the red oak.”

Meaningless to anyone outside our circle, those six words coming through the phone used to be the only instructions necessary to arrange a duck hunt the next morning among the loosely-knit mob of mavericks I once ran with.

The cast varied from hunt to hunt, depending on who could go that day. The tempo and pulse of each hunt varied as well, depending on the same thing. We were a diverse bunch: Steve and John were partners in a grain brokerage company. James Lee was a car dealer. Tall Pete was an optometrist. Short Pete a medical supply sales rep. Jerry fixed teeth for a living, and Walter drove a truck. Peck and Gary were farmers. Bill was a plumber. Jimmy was part owner of a cattle feed mill. Malcolm was a lawyer, and J.D. was, in his own words, “sort of an architect.” By the same token, I suppose I was “sort of a writer.”

The red oak was what foresters call a “wolf tree” — lightning-riven, defective, a giant left standing when the virgin timber was removed a century ago. It towers beside a gravel road in a wildlife management area famous for its green timber duck hunting. The road leads to several popular access areas, and when the ducks are in, it's not unusual for 200 vehicles to pass the old tree each morning.

We mavericks rarely drove past it. We used it as both rendezvous and starting point for most of our duck hunts over a span of a quarter-century, from 1970 through 1995.

Like many hotspots, this one didn't look so hot from the road. The red oak grew on the highest ground in the wildlife management area, and the woods were dry and dusty on both sides of the road for as far as you could see. But if you put your back to the red oak and walked more or less southwest, after a 20-minute hike you would hit the backwater. Slog on for another 10 to 20 minutes, and you would usually start hearing and seeing ducks.

After many years of hunting the same 2,000 acres, we should have learned our way around better than we did, but hunting green timber is an inexact science, and the appearance of flooded woods change according to many variables.

The passing years, wind and ice storms changed things of course, but flooded timber also looks different at different water levels and light conditions. There was also the fact that we were more or less lost, and therefore likely to approach any given landmark from a different direction each time. That tends to make things look different.

Our usual modus operandi was to just sort of blunder around out there until we got a handle on things. We never knew where the day — or the ducks — would take us, so we would simply take note of what was happening (or not happening) and adjust. More often than not, we would find a place the ducks liked.

Even when we didn't find that place, we still enjoyed the day. Sometime toward midmorning, we would gravitate toward a handy clay root or floating log, build a fire and haul out an array of frankfurters, boiled eggs, jerky, Twinkies, pickles, Fritos, candy bars and what-not. Everybody was obliged to bring foodstuffs for the communal potluck, and the variety was astounding.

Thinking back, I realize I don't recall too much about the actual duck hunting. Sure, there were some unforgettable red-letter days, when the mallards poured into the woods thick as snowflakes in a blizzard. I also remember a day when we started the hunt in mosquito-swatting weather and ended it in a full-fledged ice storm. I remember a day when a herd of deer sloshed through the backwaters into the middle of our decoys and got tangled up in the lines. And I especially remember the morning Jimmy, having had a rough night the night before, went to sleep on a blow-down tree and rolled off it into the water.

There are innumerable blurry, hodge-podge snippets of memory, those freeze-frame snapshots that tend to accumulate over a lifetime of hunting: Mallards at tree-top level against a turquoise sky. Tall Pete and Short Pete in spirited debate. Bill breaking his over-under after a snappy double on passing wood ducks, grinning, nonchalantly blowing the smoke out of the barrels.

Over the long haul, though, it's those floating-log brunches I remember best. I would never consider potted meat, gingersnaps and a dill pickle as suitable fare at home, but that combination, eaten while standing in thigh-deep ice water and huddled close to a flimsy fire, is food fit for a king. My mouth is watering as I write these words.

Toward the end of our quarter-century of association, the mob started to disintegrate. Steve and John had a falling out and dissolved their company. Tall Pete and Jerry both moved out of state. Short Pete got into politics. Bill and Jimmy died six months apart, one in a car wreck and the other from the Big C. Malcolm won a judgeship and couldn't afford to keep associating with us remaining mavericks. Other things happened. The upshot was that the mob was no more, and sometime in January 1995 was the last time the words “Meet me at the red oak” were spoken.

I've hunted that wildlife management area a few times in the decade since, but I haven't launched a hunt from the red oak in that whole time. This year I'm going to change that. Some morning this December, I'll go there by myself. I'll put my back to the tree and walk more or less southwest until I hit the backwater. I'll keep chugging until I start seeing ducks, then I'll take note and adjust.

I'll either kill a few or I won't, but either way, toward midmorning I'll find a suitable floating log or clay root, build a fire and bring out the grub. There'll be weenies, and a boiled egg, and maybe some jerky and a pickle and a Twinkie.

I'll stand by my small fire and eat this feast, and think of the mob, and be reminded one more time why this is my favorite hunting spot.