Finding his calling

WASHINGTON, N.C. -- Nathan Garrett gestured his hands around his mouth, his eyes shut and eyelids twitching, and let swan sounds flow from his lips.

After two rounds against three other competitors, Garrett, 15, was chosen world junior swan calling champion at the East Carolina Wildfowl Guild's 15th Annual Wildlife Arts Festival in this town on the Pamlico River on Sunday.

Winning the title was the finishing touch on the most eventful season of the young hunter's life.

This fall, the Wilmington youth, with the support of his father, Nick, opened a waterfowl guiding service and lodge in Hyde County.

"He lives for a duck hunt," said the elder Garrett, who offered up the family lodge and water impoundments to his son and helped him set up a limited liability corporation after he guided for charity the two previous seasons (the cause was juvenile diabetes, which he has).

Then, this fall, Garrett was chosen to Field & Stream magazine's "Generation Wild" junior pro staff. The magazine, in its second year of the program, selects four youths to write for a special Web site and make appearances in the magazine.

His season officially concluded Saturday, the state's youth waterfowl day, which allows kids 15 or younger to hunt a week after the season closed. It's the last time he'll be able to shoot on the annual day, but it won't be the last time he participates.

"It did feel weird," Garrett said.

He has hunted on the youth day since he was 5. From now on, he'll participate as a guide.

And through his guide service, Garrett is doing his part to see to it that the waterfowl hunting tradition is passed on to his generation. He allows clients to bring along a child under 13 no extra fee.

"We just wanted to get them out there and have a good time," Garrett said.

This season, Garrett took out Washington's Mike Gurkins and his 11-year-old son and two nephews.

"The kids like him because they can relate to him, seeing that he's close to their age," Gurkins said.

Garret has even bigger dreams.

He hopes one day to operate a large hunting guide network from North Carolina to the Dakotas and beyond.

It might sound improbable that someone so young could have the knowledge to guide a hunt, but consider that Garrett has been focused on the sport since he was very young and that he has hunted with several guides from Canada to Arkansas.

Consider, too, that he has hunted just about every day of several waterfowling seasons. Because he's homeschooled, he has taken his "summer vacation" during the season.

Garrett said he is just as excited about all aspects of waterfowl guiding - not just the calling, but scouting, setting out decoys and other less-glamorous parts of the job.

One guide he has learned from, Aaron Matthews of Fourth Generation Outfitters in Currituck and Camden counties, who watched Garrett compete Sunday, remembered guiding the boy and his father for swans about five years ago.

"He's definitely come a long way," Matthews said before acknowledging the challenges of gaining respect - and business - from older hunters when you're such a young guide.

Matthews himself started guiding when he was 16.

"It's hard to get a 65-year-old man to go hunting with a 15-year-old boy," he said.

But Matthews said titles such as the one Garrett earned Sunday will help.

Matthews, 27, said he felt he really didn't get respect until he was about 20.

"I still get guys that tease me on my age," Matthews said.

Garrett, who guided more than 20 hunts this season, said almost all of his clients want to come back next year.

Matt Ray of Jacksonville is one of the converts.

"We were slightly skeptical at first," Ray said of a successful duck hunt near Lake Mattamuskeet in early January, which required breaking up skim ice over a flooded cornfield to walk out to the hunting blind. "But he did everything you needed to do and didn't mess up. ... It's pretty amazing what he can do."

Garrett said he has learned from some of the pros. He doesn't use calls for goose or swan, only when calling ducks.

Allen Bliven of Allen Bliven Calls has sponsored Garrett.

"It's like hunting with a 40-year-old," Bliven said. "He just lays back. He knows when to call, when not to call. He identifies birds. He's just a natural."

As much as Garrett has big plans to make a career out of hunting, he said his heart will always be in Hyde County.

"There's just something about seeing a bunch of birds in the air there," he said.

And with mentors such as Matthews and Bliven there to help him, all he has to do is stick with it. The rest will come, and the rewards are worth it, Matthews said.

"To get out there and do what we do, with the fellowship and the hunt, there's nothing in the world like it," Matthews said.

Already, he sees the potential in Garrett, especially when it comes to swan calling.

"Not everybody can call swans with their mouth," he said. "If he keeps doing it, he'll master it."