Charlie Holt
Senior Vice President, Farmers & Merchants Bank, Stuttgart
Number of days you hunt a season? 30 to 35.
Where you hunt? In the Stuttgart area.
Club name? Our family farm south of Stuttgart.
Pump or semi-automatic? Semi-automatic.
Duck call? Rich-N-Tone and Chick Major
Fields, reservoir, river or timber? Fields and timber.
Rainy, nasty or bluebird sky? My favorite is hunting in timber on bluebird days. On rainy, nasty days I hunt rice field pits.
Favorite hunting story/memory? Several come to mind and many include hunting with my sons, David, Brad and Mark. On this particular hunt, my brother Eddie Holt and brother-in-law Donald Dierks were with us on our farm. Everything on the Grand Prairie had been frozen for four days.The temperature finally reached 32 degrees and our rice field began to thaw. Nothing happened early that morning, but at around 9 a.m., we walked into the rice field and broke a hole in the ice.We don’t know where they came from, but in 20 minutes it seemed like every duck in Arkansas County came to that hole. Even with our bad shooting, we all limited out in 15 minutes. After the hunt, watching the ducks fill the entire field up was a beautiful sight.
Favorite place to eat during duck season? At our farmhouse with the family.
What got you into duck hunting? Living in Stuttgart it was hard to avoid. At an early age, Mr. Chick and Mrs. Sophie Major taught me to blow a duck call. My dad and Chick became good friends and they often hunted together. When I was 11 years old, my dad bought me my first gun, a 20-gauge single barrel and I was able to hunt with Dad and Mr. Chick.
What is your most unusual “must have” in the duck blind? Nothing too unusual — coffee, warm gloves, a dog and a gun.
Which Arkansas executive calls ducks the best? It would have to be my brother, Eddie Holt, Arkansas State Champion Duck Caller 1968, World Champion 1968, 1969, 1970 and Champion of Champions 1970. Even though contest calling is different than calling ducks when hunting, he is pretty good at both.
