It was 1984 when Steve Shumake and myself were producing a three-day-a-week outdoor radio show on the North Carolina and Virginia Radio Networks at WRAL in Raleigh. We had a call from somebody named Booger Harris down in Belhaven who wanted us to come to Beaufort County and take a look at some sort of hunting club he was thinking about starting down east. A few weeks later, we made the trip to the area and officially met Edwin W. “Booger” Harris and listened to his ambitious plans to start a new hunting and fishing-outfitting group to be called “Pungo Acres Hunting Retreat.”

Booger took us to an old, nearly abandoned farmhouse near the Wenona Community and informed us that this was where we were supposed to spend the night. The house had no doors, windows and the only furnishings were corncobs and corn shucks on the floor. Booger had rented the house and we were the first guests who were to be welcomed at his new hunting retreat.

We unrolled our sleeping bags on the floor and prepared to sleep in a house filled with mice, bats and mosquitoes. Steve kept a loaded rifle by his side to repel any bears or red wolves that he was sure were to visit us during the night.

Welcome to phase one of the Pungo Acres Hunting Retreat and our interaction with its proprietor, Booger Harris.

Over the next few years, the old farm house gained doors, windows, a wide array of U.S. Army surplus bunk beds, blankets, assorted chairs tables, cook stoves, refrigerators and other “modern” conveniences. The house even had indoor plumbing. It wasn’t some fancy-pants hunting lodge where the clients wore tweed shooting jackets and ate fancy foods. It was a down-home, eastern North Carolina place to hunt, fish and socialize with the good ol’ boys of Beaufort and Hyde Counties.

Over the years, Pungo Acres began to host a wide variety of outdoor writers and dignitaries from all over the world. Some of the better-known outdoor writers, such as Craig Boddington, John Taylor, Bill Hilts, Bill “Rambling Ranger Of the Roanoke” Johnson and Shelia Link, began to spread the word about Pungo Acres and the joys of hunting and fishing in eastern North Carolina. It was somewhat like the idea of “If You build It They Will Come” — hunters as well as fishermen began to visit Pungo Acres.

With the aid of a lot of friends and his family, Booger Harris lent his often brusque but always friendly personality to the blend of visitors. If someone didn’t like Booger’s cooking, he was quick to tell him or her that if they didn’t like it, they should take their business somewhere else. When a group of the Women of the National Rifle Association visited and hunted with Booger, they were fascinated by the down-home hospitality that Pungo Acres had to offer. It was different from some of the fancy hunting lodges that they’d visited before. In its own way, Pungo Acres and Booger Harris offered something that they found to be intriguing.

Booger had his own way of doing things and his friends and family followed somewhat the same ways. Dana, Booger’s daughter, had a pet cat and it often climbed into trees where it couldn’t get down. When Dana asked her dad to help get the cat out of the tree, Booger was preoccupied with telling tall tales to some visitors and told his son Martin to “go out and get Dana’s cat out of the tree.” Doing what he was told to do, the 12-year-old Martin picked up his shotgun and proceeded to bring the cat down with a load of number four shot (not steel shot either).

One time when Booger was hosting a group of kids from a local church on a hunt at Pungo Acres, his guides and friends were having some alcoholic drinks after the hunt and Booger diplomatically asked the church’s minister if he’d object. The minister replied that his church did indeed not approve of the use of alcohol and felt that those who used it were not going to heaven. True to form, Booger replied, “That’s okay. I’ll be meeting some of my friends in either heaven or hell when I get one of them.”

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife folks at the nearby U.S.F.W.S. refuge often had issues when hunters at Pungo Acres started shooting too close to the shelter. When the “Feds” started to find spots along the refuge roads where handfuls of waterfowl feathers were strewn about among spent shotgun shells, they were convinced that some poachers were night-hunting ducks and geese on the refuge. They concentrated enforcement efforts in the area to try and catch the violators and spent several uncomfortable nights on a stake-out, fighting the mosquitoes, red wolves and summer heat until they finally figured out that someone had been baiting them on with old shotgun shells and feathers left from legal waterfowl hunters cleaning their birds. It’s funny how they always suspected that either Booger or his friends were involved.

Pungo Acres built up quite a good reputation over the years, but the main draw at the retreat wasn’t necessarily the good hunting and fishing. It was the personality of Edwin “Booger” Harris that people tended to remember. No matter who the guests were, Booger socialized with them as if they were homefolks. Most of those guests came back again and again.

It’s amazing that no matter where in the world you go to hunt or fish, the conversation soon turns to eastern North Carolina and someone then asks, “Do you know Booger Harris?” Most of the time the answer is yes.

I don’t know of many people who have helped to advertise the good outdoor sports and particularly hunting and fishing in this area more than Edwin “Booger” Harris and his Pungo Acres Hunting Retreat. Booger was a genuine good will ambassador.

When Booger meets-up with Saint Peter at the pearly gates, I can imagine that St. Peter is going to lean over from his desk and ask, “Mr. Edwin Wakely Harris, before you enter these gates, would you please tell me just why you named your boat the ‘Lying Booger?’”