Pass blocking and duck calling

BELMONT ,Ohio. — The first rays of daylight revealed a frozen pond. However, about 20 yards straight out in front of our position the water was open, fed by a stream coming into the body of water.

Colton McKivitz returned for his senior season at WVU as much for his Wildlife and Fisheries as he did for football

The small impoundment was on the edge of a dairy farm and just over the hill from a natural gas drilling site in a remote part of eastern Ohio. Large trucks continued to regularly roll behind us during the morning to service the drilling site.

“There were about 30 or 40 here right at dark that flew off over the hill. They’ll be here soon,” said my hunting partner, Colton McKivitz.

McKivitz is the former West Virginia University offensive lineman who returned for his senior season in 2019. Despite missing a bowl game, McKivitz was the anchor of Neal Brown’s first offensive line and is now concentrating on finding a place to play at the next level.

His love of football may only be surpassed by his love of the outdoors.

“I’ve hunted deer and turkeys all my life. Dad and I have trapped and fished as long as I can remember,” McKivitz told me in an episode of West Virginia Outdoors recorded in his Ohio duck blind.

“We just took up duck and goose hunting a few years ago. The old man likes it because you can talk,” laughed Colton.

“The Old Man” as Colton referred to him is his dad Matt McKivitz . The former coal miner is pure mountain man. You actually wonder how these guys are from Ohio and not West Virginia.

Matt’s headgear has garnered him plenty of attention during Colton’s career in Morgantown. He has a couple of different options, his coonskin hat and his coyote hat, both of which are as much face as they are hide.

“I wanted to make something different, so I put a jaw set in a hat. It was just a rug shell that I cut down and gave it some attitude,” Matt laughed.

Colton and Matt have a tight bond forged in the outdoors.

“The funnest part is the away game because people want to buy them. They’re city slickers and they’ve never seen anything like that,” he laughed.

Nearby, Colton rolls his eyes as Matt gets warmed up. Colton is right: He loves to talk and tell stories.

“I’m more like my mom,” said Colton, content to listen and drop in humorous commentary.

The fourth member of our team for the morning was Darby Waller. Matt referred to him throughout the day as “my favorite son-in-law.” Darby is married to Colton’s sister and formerly worked in the coal mines with Matt.

I soon learned marrying the daughter, entitles you to retrieve ducks and break-up the ice during a hunting trip..

Overhead the tell-tale flap of wings began as mallards and pin-tails started to slowly descend toward the small opening of water on the pond. A check of my phone revealed it was 7:02 a.m.

“We can’t shoot until 7:05,” Colton whispered. The law says hunting may not begin until a half-hour before sunrise, which on this day was 7:35 a.m.

Colton and Matt squawked on duck calls as waterfowl were now moving in all directions. I turned my phone toward Colton when it read, “7:05”

“Kill ’em.” he whispered and within seconds the air was filled with steel shot and by the time it was over, six ducks had dropped to the ice.

While we reloaded and Darby gathered our bounty and broke ice, our conversation returned to football. Colton has a desire to get on with an NFL team and hopes to eventually turn his fortunes into his own guide service some day.

“I’d like to get a place at least 500 acres, somewhere in the Midwest and do guided duck hunts and give mom and dad a place to come out and live,” he said. “When you’ve got that kind of land, you can expect to have big deer too.”

Colton took advantage of his time at WVU and the free tuition afforded through a football scholarship. He’s graduated with a degree in wildlife and fisheries. In fact, Professor Quinton Phelps, who is now at Missouri State University, had as much to do with McKivitz’s return to Morgantown as Neal Brown.

“He played a huge role in getting me to stay and finish the degree,” he said.

McKivitz spend much of his senior year shocking fish in West Virginia lakes and rivers as part of his Wildlife and Fisheries course work

“I got to shock up a 40 pound catfish out of the Mon River. We were doing a lot of that and then one day we’d be in a lab looking at larval samples from Asian carp, and the next day, I’d be cutting open a paddle fish and having about $15,000 worth of caviar on the table that wound up thrown it he trash. You don’t get many experiences like those,” he said.

Our conversation was abruptly interrupted by the unmistakable honk of Canada geese. Colton answered them and began to draw them in closer. More than 40 flew in formation coming straight toward us. We had guns ready, waiting for his signal. Just as it seemed we would open fire, the geese turned and landed 150 yards away on a hillside above the pond in the sunshine. They were clearly visible, well out of range, and seemed to mock us.

“We just lost that battle,” Matt said.

During the final game of the regular season, when the Mountaineers beat TCU on the road, among those in line to congratulate Colton after the game was former WVU Offensive Line Coach Joe Wickline. He held up his phone to show Colton a nine-point buck he had killed.

“That kind of shows the relationship you have with those coaches. Actually, the Old Man made Coach Wick a hat and he’s having a great time in Mississippi owning his own place and getting to hunt a lot. Just having those outdoor relationships is really special,” he said.

Darby Waller, “The Favorite Son-In-Law” according to Matt McKivitz breaks ice and gathers downed ducks on a rural Ohio pond

We never got a shot at the geese, but eventually we downed two more ducks before calling it a day. Colton is correct about the relationships. Football is a fun sport, but when you share a deer stand, a duck blind, or a home made coonskin cap with another individual a tight bond is formed.

While Colton hopes to eventually be blocking on Sunday for a paycheck and Matt hopes to be wearing his hats for an entirely different audience two things are certain. They’ll be telling stories about it in a duck blind, and the favorite son-in-law Darby will be gathering up the ducks and breaking the ice.