14 minute read
Kaci Willey on growing up with a focus on the outdoors
COVER STORY
Kaci Willey and her family detail generations of growing up with a focus on the outdoors
Story by Niambi Davis | Photos by Audrey Wozny
With fields, marsh, wood and water, its iconic beauty is why the Eastern Shore ranks consistently at the top of the best places to visit. And for many, to live. In 1960, John and Mildred Ciekot moved from Baltimore and settled on 120 acres of land they purchased in Hudson, near the town of Cambridge. The Ciekots gave 20 acres of the land to Danny and Wanda Ciekot; parents of David Ciekot, and 20 to Steve and Bonnie McCollister, the parents of Amanda Willey.
“David and I were more like brother and sister than cousins,” Amanda recalled. “The farm, as we called it, had a long lane with the houses spaced out so that everyone had their own place.”
When their grandparents passed away, she and David became owners of the remaining acres. David moved to their grandparent’s farm, while Amanda lived in Cambridge with her husband Brian and their daughter Kaci. In 2020, she and David sold their portion of the farm.
“It was the hardest thing David and I had to do, but it was probably the best. Now my parents are the only family still there.” Although Amanda and her family live in town, Kaci is still able to enjoy the place her mother and David loved as children.
“We’re definitely an outdoor family,” Amanda said. Although she’s not as actively involved in outdoor life as other members of her family, she does like being on the water and watching it from a peaceful quiet place. “On the other hand, my cousin David’s whole life revolves around the outdoors. And he’s an avid hunter — deer, goose duck — you name it, he hunts it. When bear hunting came back to Western Maryland, Dave got the first bear that year.”
On his land, David formed his own gun club and named it Bon Repose Cove, which means “good rest” in French. The name originated from his discovery of an old tax map showing a cove with the same name near their property. Even their beloved Labrador and Golden Retrievers carry the name, with shortened versions for dispensing everyday affection and treats: Bon Repose Cove Evil Hearted Woman (Evie); Bon Repose Cove Hockey Puck (Puck); Bon Repose Cove Rum and Cola (Cola), and Bon Repose Cove Flaming Ember (Ember).
Amanda’s daughter Kaci refers to David as Uncle Dave. But, as she points out, “since I’m the only child on that side of the family, he actually treats me more like I’m his own daughter.”
Kaci, now a senior at Cambridge South Dorchester High School, fully embraces outdoor life. She was a little girl when Uncle Dave first took her hunting.
“I didn’t have the patience for it,” she said. But when he took her out on the water, fishing quickly became her favorite outdoor sport and the foundation for some of her best childhood experiences. There was a definite ritual that began on the farm the night before.
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First would be dinner, followed by cartoons when she was younger and movies when she grew older. The next morning after breakfast, they’d spend the day on the water. The outing always ended with a milkshake from nearby Soft and Salty’s. Back at the farm they’d clean their catch and cook it for dinner.
“Uncle Dave is also very creative,” Kaci said. “He makes his own muzzleloaders. He’d let me watch the process and then work with him to create the guns he used for hunting. Sometimes I would go with him to muzzleloader clubs and to target practice.”
Outside of outdoor life, Kaci’s passion is dance.
“I’ve been dancing since I was three,” she said. After graduation, she ‘s considering college and a degree in exercise science.
Amanda describes her daughter’s commitment to dance as an “ironic twist of fate.” Kaci’s great-grandmother Mildred, one of the original owners of the land, was herself a professional dancer who at one time performed at the World’s Fair.
“I believe my grandmother gave Kaci to me,” Amanda said. “She takes her dedication to dance from my grandmother and the love of the outdoors from my grandfather and Dave. She’s inherited the best of both parts of her heritage.” And Kaci has always loved the quiet life. “I don’t like cities with lots of people and traffic,” she said. “I like it calm and quiet.”
It wasn’t always so with her mother.
“When I was really young I didn’t like it that my friends weren’t close and I couldn’t just go down the street to see them,” Amanda recalled. “But when I came back home from college at Frostburg [State University], I really came to appreciate where I lived and the way I grew up. There was a peace in that lifestyle,” she said, recalling summertime crabbing, gardening and caring for the chickens with her grandfather. “To see Kaci do the same with Dave means a lot to me.”
Family life means fishing and hunting, but it also means coming together over a good meal.
“We’re very big on eating what we catch,” Amanda said.
At the center of a traditional January family meal
was her grandmother’s old English recipe for rabbit — not roasted, fried or stewed — this was sour rabbit, for which Dave substituted deer instead. He marinated the meat for 72 hours in a sour sauce and put it in a crockpot to cook all night into the next day.
“To go along with the deer, we’d make the dumplings from scratch,” Amanda said. To finish it off, the sour sauce was made into gravy. “It took every pot in the kitchen but it was so good. One year when we did sour deer Dave made a separate crockpot of bear. It was phenomenal. And bear tastes like whatever it ate last,” Amanda reported with the authority of experience. “If you get a bear that’s been eating salmon, it’s very fishy. Our bear must have been eating berries; it was very sweet. I’m glad we got the berry bear!”
Through the love of family, land and traditions, the descendants of Mildred and John Ciekot honor their legacy. And if you ask Amanda Willey if the phrase “life is good on the Eastern Shore” is accurate, her reply is “absolutely.” S
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Bay ON THE with CAPTAIN HERMAN HADDAWAY
Story and photos by Tracey F. Johns
Captain Herman Haddaway Jr. of Easton and Screaming Eagle Charters in Neavitt know a thing or two about fishing and hunting along the Chesapeake Bay’s Eastern Shore in Talbot County.
That’s because Haddaway has spent his entire life connecting to these waterways and mastering the art of bountiful fishing and hunting.
Born in Easton and raised in Neavitt, Haddaway’s deep knowledge of the bay’s brackish tides and currents has been cultivated and nurtured over generations of family members working decades on or around the water.
Haddaway said he fished these same waters as a young boy with his grandfather — a local waterman who crabbed and oystered, known as Captain Shank. He continued to recreationally fish and hunt out of Neavitt throughout his adulthood and 30+ year career as a law enforcement officer with the Easton and St. Michaels Police Departments
KNOWING THE NUANCES OF CHESAPEAKE BAY FISHING
Now, Herman Haddaway Jr. is retired from his law enforcement career and has worked full-time as a certified charter fishing captain since 2010, offering year-round, half-day, and
full-day fishing and hunting excursions on the Screaming Eagle.
He takes chartered groups of up to six people out on the Screaming Eagle on these familiar waters to catch rockfish, bluefish, Spanish mackerel and more each spring through midNovember, with sea and diver duck hunting offered from mid-November through the end of January.
It’s here that Haddaway shares his understanding of the bay’s nuances for finding fishing and hunting spots with other outdoor enthusiasts who love being on the water.
His first charter fishing boat, Miss Jeannie, was built by his father, Herman Haddaway Sr., and named after his sister, Jeannie HaddawayRiccio, who once served as the youngest member in Maryland’s House of Delegates and is now Secretary of Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources. Herman’s brother Ronnie Haddaway also maintains a deep connection to the Chesapeake Bay, continuing in his father Herman Haddaway Sr.’s footsteps making a lifelong career as a respected boat builder.
Haddaway generally leaves the dock in Neavitt as early as 5:00 a.m. for his morning fishing or hunting parties, which also gives him and his mate, 25-year-old son Brendan, the opportunity to see the light emerge in each day’s rising sun.
“It never gets old,” says Haddaway, when I ask about the sun peeking over the horizon and casting over another nearby charter fishing boat. “Every sunrise is different.”
CAPT. HERMAN PUTS ME ON THE FISH
I was able to climb aboard the Screaming Eagle this past September to do some live-line fishing using Spot for catching rockfish and bluefish, and to witness that sunrise myself.
We started at 5:30 a.m. in the total darkness of Neavitt Landing, where Haddaway keeps his boat.
The Screaming Eagle’s humming diesel engine and dimmed blue deck lights greeted me alongside Captain Herman Haddaway and son Brendan. I gratefully was offered a hand while hopping on board the 32’ Trojan converted deadrise, which offers a steady ride on its 13-foot beam.
Part of the beauty of going charter fishing is also how light you can pack for a day of fishing. The captain and his mate take care of having the bait and tackle you need already on board and will help take fish off and bait up your hook throughout the trip.
I stowed my water, snacks and clothes for the day’s warming weather down below and went straight to the head before we left the dock. The cabin space is spacious inside, with lots of places for guests to sit or stand. Windows generously open to catch summer’s cross breezes, with heat available to keep it comfortable in the colder months. The captain’s seat includes all the controls for operating the boat and includes GPS and radar to help navigate through this morning’s darkness toward our first fishing spot.
I notice both Haddaways move about the boat with few words spoken to one another, working in tandem to untie the lines, check the radar and set our destination on GPS. It’s a dance they continue when we begin fishing a little later, moving about with an ease and rhythm known only to people who do things together for quite a long time — while they work together baiting lines, moving the boat over schooling fish, and netting up the day’s catch of rockfish and bluefish.
We begin by idling out of Balls Creek, through Broad Creek, the Choptank River and into the Chesapeake Bay to find our first fishing spot. Our only light comes from the glow from Haddaway’s instrument panel and the boat’s running lights. His GPS shows a lot of history in past trips marked by numerous lines on the screen and holds the secrets to navigating toward some of Haddaway’s best spots.
Today, 10-15 knot winds and choppy waters greet us as we arrive where the Chesapeake Bay meets the Choptank River. Stripers, or rockfish, are running and the sweet aroma of brackish air surrounds this 68-degree
start of the day. The boat’s Cummins QSB 380 diesel offers a steady baritone hum, while sonar shows dabbles of debris and bottom as we swiftly travel on plane to our fishing destination.
We drop anchor and confirm its hold. Off to the morning’s darker horizon to the west are twinkling lights from a waiting tanker ready to clear passage to Baltimore Harbor and from the power plant at Calvert Cliffs. The sun rises over another fishing boat, the Chesapeake Lady II out of Tilghman Island, and the two captains talk over the radio with morning greetings and fishing reports.
My first bite is a rockfish, plenty of size for the season’s limit, and sure to be tasty for dinner later on. I like a certain fight in my fishing also, so our next catch of plentiful bluefish had my reel zinging and the cooler soon filling with fish. It’s a great start to any day.
Haddaway says they continue to use Spot for light tackle fishing spring through fall — depending on the weather, and then switch to trolling with lures and planer boards for trophy rockfishing each spring.
A COMMUNITY ON THE BAY
While we were heading in, I asked Haddaway if he felt he was more in the fishing business, or the people business.
“It’s a combination of both,” said Haddaway, “There’s a lot of questions, and you get to meet a lot of different kinds of people along the way. Plus, we have our own community of charter fishing captains that look out for one another while we are out here.”
That sentiment certainly rang true as we pulled up our lines and headed back to Neavittby way of Knapps Narrows and Tilghman Island. After hitting fish after fish on all our lines, Haddaway radioed over to the neighboring boat to invite them to take his spot right over a school of bluefish.
UNIQUE EXCURSIONS WITH CAPT. HERMAN HADDAWAY
Haddaway offers a unique “Cast-n-Blast” full-day excursion package each November which includes sea duck hunting for the first 3-4 hours of the morning and fishing in the afternoon for an equal amount of time.
Haddaway says these excursions are booked at least a year in advance, with most parties he’s hosted coming from Pennsylvania and local areas. Additionally, he offers sunset wine cruises in the summer months for those that don’t want to fish and just want a day out on the water.
You can book your next fishing or hunting excursion aboard the Screaming Eagle by visiting www.screamingeaglecharters.com. S
The writer of the story, Tracey F. Johns, is photographed here with her late husband, Curtis P. Johns. Tracey said this story meant so much to her to write because Curtis was a charter fishing captain in Somerset County before his passing in 2017.
