When I began my November hunt in the Iowa timber, the brown leaves still clung to the branches. Over the next two weeks it rained leaves, shrinking the canopy and letting in a vague light from the overcast sky. And a question occurred to me, during those endless maddening hours in my swaying treestand, as someone who has filled a million sacks, burned a million piles, who’s going to rake up all these leaves?
They are almost here. Moving toward us on a breath of air, warm with summer but every now and then, fringed with a coolness that’s new. The crisp leaves blow across the grass. The truck sits in the driveway, waiting like a mechanical dog, to carry the load, to go wherever I point it. To get muddied up.
Waders hang in the garage. An empty man waiting, to be brought back to life by that first soak of the new season. A box of shells sits on the workbench, a neat platoon of 25 soon to be disbanded; one for the breech, two in reserve. A cart, well past its prime and rusted, gets a shot of grease at the hubs and vows to carry on.
Yes, they are almost here. Those days of outdoor enterprise.
Phone calls and emails tell you they’re on their way. On a stream of scouting reports. Rumors. Plans. All the wishful thinking and conjecture soon to give way to opening day realities. Wind. Weather. Water here but not there. Seasoned with the fickleness of waterfowl. And the luck of the draw.
On those days, strategies will be birthed in the glow of headlamps, on worn torn refuge maps. There will be the smack splashes of plastic ducks tossed out onto dark waters. We’ll wait impatiently for watches to say six thirteen…fourteen…fifteen. Our faces and barrels will poke through the arrow weed as silhouettes turn to plumage in the morning sun. All worries will be purged from our minds by the rising heat, sweated out, reduced to a stain on the rim of our caps. All thoughts of work will be lost to the stillness and then, to the sudden fury of the short, sweet stay of a duck in our line of fire.
Oh man, they are almost here, those rich days. Those few days, out of a hundred days, out of three hundred and sixty five days. Those rare days.
What will they bring us this season? What first-time things? What last-time things? We’ll take notes. And pictures. We’ll take the days home with us and keep them. Because you never know when you’ll get more like them.
We’ll remember those days!
And we’ll take a moment to say to our friends it’s good to be here with you. On these great days. The hunting days. The rare days.
Griff turned 16 on March 23rd, and we decided to make him a very custom birthday cake. My wife baked his favorite, carrot cake, which I cut up and assembled into a snow goose shape. Then came the white icing, a little black and pink icing, some orange wedge candies for feet, and coconut “feathers” and Griff’s special cake was ready. A cake board sprayed with blue food coloring and tules made of fettucini and ladyfinger pastries completed the scene.
I’m more sorry than usual to see this hunting season end. I imagine it has a lot to do with the fact that next year I’ll be hunting with an “adult.” Or at least, a 16 year old with an adult hunting license. This was my son Griff’s last year as a junior hunter.
I’ll admit, I’m not looking forward to his hunting license costing more next year, or having to pay for him to hunt the refuges, but that’s not what’s making it harder to say goodbye to this season. I’d like to say I’ll miss the advantage that camp folklore says juniors have in the reservation draws, but don’t recall experiencing it.
In fact, I should be happy to be gaining an adult partner. There are quite a few benefits, after all. Grown up kids can carry more gear. And they can help drive, which is a real bonus, whether mom and dad want an extra glass of wine with dinner or dad just needs a nap on the way back from Delevan or Tule Lake.
Not that Griff has seemed like much of a junior lately. He’s 6’2,” shoots and calls better than many grown-ups, and has his own good ideas about how to play the waterfowling game. Still, in my mind, I’ve had a kid with me all of these past six seasons. When there’s no one left to shepherd, I guess it’s time to become something else.
Not that my charge card won’t still be needed, for that next gotta-have item at Cabela’s or Bass Pro. But I know Griff can pull off a good hunt now all by himself. Sure, he’ll forget that extra pair of socks or a sandwich, but him being cold or hungry always bothered me more than it did him anyway.
I will miss the juniors-only hunt, which has always been my favorite weekend every season. People have worked so hard to help us have a good time. I guess we’ll try to repay the favor, and recapture the thrill of those first few junior adventures, by helping other young hunters next year.
The seasons since Griff and his older brother Gray had their first hunt in 2002 have been filled with amazing moments of discovery and learning, about wild game and ourselves. That will go on, I’m sure. On that first outing, true to their personalities, Gray approached it with great care and precision, but eventually lost interest in hunting. Griffin stepped onto that brushy field with a quietly gleaming passion that I’ve yet to see wane.
I’m glad Gray, and the boys’ mom Pamela, came along on this last junior hunt. Looking at the photo of Griff and Gray, it reminded me of their first hunting picture. Then they were young, hunting birds that were planted and hesitant. Now the boys are grown up, pretty much, and the two birds Griff worked all day to get were wild and mature. And that’s a fitting end to a last season as a junior hunter.
My brother Jon has hunted Gray Lodge many times, but this time was the most memorable, since he got to take along his 11-year-old daughter. Here’s his account of the day…
Well Bro, here’s how it went. Blue skies and no wind. We didn’t even see a duck come into our pond that was closer than 200 yards away. It was that bad.
But the good news is, Justine and I had a blast! We left on Friday and got to the motel around 3 pm., the same place we stayed the last time you and Griff were in Gridley. Had lunch and dinner at that same diner and Justine loved it. Took a quick trip to the refuge and had Dusty run around. Of course, she was out of her mind and loving it.
We got up the next morning at 3:45am and were in line at 4am. Even though we had number 85, it might as well have been 15. There was absolutely no one there. If you all had been along, we could have had a nice spot! But, I didn’t want to take the chance of going to far or to a spot that was too deep. So, we went right out of the same parking lot that we all parked in before.
We found a pond that I have shot a few ducks at before. As we set up, Justine looks in the water with her flashlight and says, “Dad, is that a duck decoy?” I look and tell her that is a real duck. Turned out to be a dead bull sprig floating in the pond. Dusty runs out and retrieves it. Must have been from the day before from one of the private clubs, still fresh. Before shoot time, Justine is playing with the duck and then I see her with her flashlight poking around in the mud. She says “Dad, I found a watch.” No, not a Rolex.
The sun comes up and we just sit there, nothing for over two hours. We decide to leave and go back to the motel, clean up, and have breakfast. We call it a day.
So, Dusty got to retrieve her duck. Justine and I got to snuggle on a freezing pond and watch falling stars. We listened to the pond sounds. Justine found a watch. And we got to see Dusty running around like a puppy. Bottom line, we had a great time. As we headed home, Justine taps me on the shoulder and says “Dad, I had so much fun.”
Can’t wait for next season. It can only get better. Hope you got some birds this weekend. Or at least enjoyed time with your duck hunting boy. It was truly a treat for me being with my girl hunting ducks.
The Hunnicutts, Dave and his son Nathan, joined my son Griff and I for a blue-bird Sunday hunt at Wister. The nice breeze helped keep us cool, but without a lot of hunters and guns on the refuge, it didn’t do much to get ducks up and moving around. Still, it was a good hunt, especially when the ever-alert Griff suddenly blurted out “ducks, left!” and a second later I’d downed my first ever drake Canvasback.
Just like in politics, I find waterfowling to be primarily a two party system. Sure, there are many times when we dabble in the rituals and passions of the other party, but deep down, each of us is one or the other. A goose hunter or a duck hunter.
My son is a card-carrying schneegansjager. That’s German for snow goose hunter. I’m a dyed-in-the-wool duck hunter. But I do enjoy watching him call in and bring down those Snows and big Canadas. And hopefully he enjoys hearing me say over and over again when we’re on a duck hunt: Damn I’m glad we didn’t have to put out 1,500 goose decoys this morning!
For me, hunting in a dry field is second best to a nicely-tuled pond with a cool breeze tickling the murky surface and ducks silhouetted against the overcast sky. And that’s exactly what I got to experience at Kern yesterday.
With a #15 rezzie in hand, I called up someone I had known for years online, but had never hunted with or even met. I’ve always admired Scott’s posts, especially the calm demeanor and logical mind that was clearly behind them. Scott goes by the online name Atwater and is a gifted taxidermist, which usually means a greater appreciation for the beauty and grace of waterfowl than the average hunter. Scott’s taxidermy website
A long land march and wade through the dark waters brought us to our spot. The small, late-season spread went out in minutes, and then we waited for shoot time, talking and occasionally clicking on our headlamps to notify others of our claim. Scott’s dog swam happily in and out of the glow of our lamps, her nose poking into air filled with the thousand scents we humans know only singly as marsh.
The morning was slow but picked up as singles and pairs of Wigeon dropped out of the high fog, sometimes offering a shot, but usually not. Then the fog came lower, and we began hearing the small, pinched quacks of Gadwalls, with only rare sightings of the birds themselves. But Kern is that kind of duck hunting spot where it feels good to wait, and watch. The sense of time disappears with the sun. The bordering tules and tree lines become the edge of your world.
But then the sun usually returns, along with your sense of purpose.
Two gadwalls came in and BAAMM BAAMM, they splashed between the decoys. As a flock of Wigeon hovered above the reeds, camo’d gun barrels poked out and more ducks left the air forever. A mallard couple came in, cupped, but only the hen made it out. A big drake, and triple curled; he’ll be a tough mate for her to replace.
A flock of Redheads arrowed overhead at high speed. A lone Shoveler lowered himself unevenly in among the decoys, swam a bit, and left. More Shovelers whistled by above. And groups of Pintails, mostly in the yellow zone of air, between the green of a clean shot and the red of a Hail Mary. In a place like Kern, where it’s a long, long walk to the truck for more shells, the yellow zone always seems more orange.
A few lone ducks cut across the bluing sky from different directions, including some Cinnamons. Another Gadwall joined our strap. Mallards appeared over other ponds, out of reach, but Scott’s calling enticed a pair. Another drake went down, and we called it a day. Another great duck hunt to recall on those days to come, when the birds don’t fly, the breeze won’t blow, the pond isn’t as pretty, or the company as good.
Every hunter has that one animal that makes their heart stir. For some, it’s the vision of a bighorn sheep skylined on a craggy ridge. For others, it’s the tawny coat and chaotic tines of a non-typical whitetail. For every huntable animal, there is someone who thinks of it and sighs.
The object of my affection is The Drake Mallard. For those who live where they are plentiful and a 7-mallard strap is a common thing, this probably seems absurd. But mallards are not so plentiful in the desert marshes of borderland California, and so, for me anyway, they represent what duck hunting is on its very best days. Not that I don’t appreciate the chocolate-headed pintails we have plenty of, or the white-mohawked widgeon, or the screaming flights of cinnamon and green-wing teal that enliven our mornings. They are all fine and beautiful waterfowl and I’m honored by each one that gets on my strap. But the mallard is still the thing that makes my hunting day, that fills my soul, that gives me a most magnificent piece of the natural world to take back home with me. As if a little shard of sunrise had been broken off by God and given to me to have as my very own.
As an artist, I’m awed by the mallard’s speculum, which isn’t just a patch of blue but a pool you gaze into, trying to but never really seeing the full depth of it. Like a thief in the shadows of a sultan’s palace, I’ll risk life and limb for that jewel of an emerald-green head. I have millions of colors at my disposal on my graphic design computer programs, but I could never replicate the ever-changing intricacy or the natural electric glow of those tiny feathers. And those orange feet and yellow beak, which surely hold their own against the most exotic Amazonian birds.
Maybe the reason that one mallard on my strap satisfies me like seven of anything else is because it was the first big duck I ever got. After the teal from my first couple of hunts, sometimes stringing several in my fingers at one time, hoisting that green-headed, triple-curled monster out of the muddy water was a shocking and life-affecting moment for me. The mallard I brought down yesterday wasn’t nearly the size of that first one. But the shiver that zipped through me as I reached into the tules to retrieve him showed me once again and very clearly: the drake mallard is my one duck.
What’s yours?
Heading to Wister after a heavy rain, and without a reservation, I was reluctant. Wister’s mud had taken a $1,200 toll on my wife’s Volvo a couple of seasons before, not counting the $500 for the tow back to civilization and the Volvo dealer. But my son Griff reminded me that sweatlining had yielded some of our best hunts. And this time we had a 4WD truck.
So we went. And with our #26 in the sweatline, we pinned the tail on the Wister blind map donkey and hoped for the best.
The wind began soon after the sun put a faint light in the sky behind the Chocolate Mountains. It was the first day that electronic spinners were allowed, so we placed our freshly dusted off and charged up spinner amid the six mallard decoys we’d carried in. We were hunting light that day, since the roads were too muddy to drive, too muddy even for a cart. Stripped of all the gear I usually drag out to a hunt, with only a couple of tule seats, our guns, and a lunchbox, I felt ill-prepared but also a little unburdened. I did have the snake bite kit in my wader pocket, not knowing if the rain would keep Wister’s plentiful rattlers at home in their holes.
The morning wind produced ducks almost immediately, flying in from what had to be some choppy water in the Salton Sea. Wigeon and gads, and a few pintails, zoomed in, some hovering above our spinner. We know what curiosity did to the cat. Well, it did the same thing to quite a few ducks that day. Between Griff’s wonderful calling and our small but strategic spread, we ended one of our best days on the pond by noon with 12 fine ducks on the strap.
We trudged out the half-mile to Davis Road, exhausted, our feet blocked with mud like a couple of cement-shoed mafia victims. We’d traded a few pounds of ammo and sandwiches for twice as many pounds of duck. What a great day. Now on Monday morning, I’m reminded of it again, as the aroma of marinated and jerky-seasoned duck meat wafts up the stairs from the oven.
Zenhunting 
