It’s being reported that a duck hunter near Port Arthur, Texas, has been killed in a duck hunting accident on the upper Texas coast. Jefferson County Justice of the Peace Bob Morgan says 30 year old Matthew Thomas Janson, of Houston, was hit by a shotgun blast as he and a friend were firing at ducks at J.D. Murphree Wildlife Management Area.
Morgan says the Sunday shooting is being investigated as an accident. He says the men launched a boat in Sabine Pass and that the shooting happened about an hour later in a marsh. The hunting partners were at compartment 17 of the South Bayou Unit of the J.D. Murphree Wildlife Management Area when they began shooting simultaneously at ducks.
One can only guess as to what happened with this tragic duck hunting accident, but a safe guess would be that someone was out of position or that the shooter fired outside his safe zone of fire. My heart goes out to the families of both men. Hunting, although it involves guns, knives, and getting into hazardous areas under adverse weather conditions, is still one of the safest sports in the United States.