J.J. Kent has been a member of the Mossy Oak ProStaff since 2011. We are saddened that his life ended much too soon. The week of his passing, we posted a blog series about him and his many hunting endeavors. We will always appreciate J.J.'s passion and dedication to the outdoors. We know he affected many lives for the outdoors and truly loved hunting and guiding hunters.
An excerpt from "Late Texoma duck guide J.J. Kent was crazy about ducks," by Lynn Burkhead.
Longtime Texoma area duck guide J.J. Kent was a man that was passionate about hunting, especially when it came to ducks.
Ironically enough, that waterfowling zeal started years earlier in of all places a Texas deer blind.
In a recent Hunting Blog post at MossyOak.com, here’s how Kent described his transformation from the deer stand to a duck blind.
“Years and years ago I was sitting in a deer stand with my dad, and I decided I was tired of deer hunting,” wrote Kent, a Mossy Oak pro-staffer since 2011. “I’d taken enough deer to know that I could. I decided to look for a different type of hunting.”
And that’s where the Good Lord intervened and changed Kent’s future.
From deer and ducks in the fall to Rio Grande turkeys in the spring to hogs all year long, J.J. spent the last few years building up a top-end outfitting operation from the ground up.
So much so that Kent began to guide hunters – and outdoors media – from all over Texas, Oklahoma and the rest of the U.S.
Unfortunately, one of those new days this past season – opening weekend, in fact – brought more than Kent, his wife Carla, his son Brandon, his guiding staff or any of his army of friends wanted to experience.
After a wave of duck blind chest pain, a quick visit to a local rural hospital brought a transfer to Wichita Falls and then a trip on to U.T. Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.
As it turned out, what was first feared to be a heart attack was in fact a heart valve that was greatly constricted, necessitating the replacement of his aortic valve.
After doctors determined that surgery wasn’t immediately necessary, Kent was able to let his guides do most of the work and make his way through the rest of duck season, including the Sure-Shot Game Calls Media Hunt in early January with Charlie Holder and his crew.
When the season ended, Kent was still smiling big, insisting that he felt good and was still in good spirits as he awaited open heart surgery to replace the malfunctioning valve.
Unfortunately, that’s where the good times began to end as Kent had surgery on February 8. What followed was an up-and-down recovery as complications set in and began to take their toll.
J.J. Kent passed away on Friday, February 17.
Read more here: http://durantdemocrat.com/sports/10684/late-texoma-duck-guide-j-j-kent-was-crazy-about-ducks.
