For years, Bob Cathey ran a farm in Anderson, but in 1998, he went into a different kind of farming, one that seems a natural extension to the Cathey family’s love of hunting.
Bob Cathey bought 225 acres near Lavonia, Ga., on the Georgia side of Lake Hartwell. He, his wife Leila and son Daniel opened a commercial duck-hunting operation, Skeeter Branch Hunting Preserve (www.HuntMallards.com).
The Catheys raise 8,000 to 10,000 mallards annually on the preserve, which includes a main lodge, two rustic, historic cabins, an 8-station skeet range and two stocked ponds. They are raised in brooders and released onto a pond near the lodge, where they begin to adapt to their freedom while continuing to be fed.
The Catheys maintain a number of waterfowl impoundments on nearby bottomland. They’re drained in the spring and planted in corn, then the ponds are flooded. The ducks fly from the main holding pond to the flooded ponds to feed on the corner throughout the Oct. 1-March 31 preserve season, becoming more and more wary as the shooting begins.
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