Ducks Part Deux

That 3:45 a.m. alarm came early Tuesday morning, but I actually woke up before the alarm clock. I checked in at Eagle Bluffs, and found a new member of our hunting party. He cautioned me that I might not want to get started on water fowl hunting, as it could become a life-consuming experience. I told him I noticed that Joe’s super-cab truck had just enough room for the driver, because it was full of gear, and Bill had his truck loaded down with as well.
"My whole garage is full of waterfowl hunting gear," Norb admitted.
Changing from a 14 to a 9 position in line gave us a many more options, and Bill and Joe carefully considered our strategy, basing their selection primarily on kill numbers from the previous day’s hunt. We soon made our choice, and were out the door.
It was raining again, but now I was wearing a borrowed pair of waders that didn’t leak, and that made all the difference. The previous day we had been set up in the water’s edge, only a few yards from the levee. This day we walked a couple of hundred yards out into a flooded field, and set up at the edge of a pool of water that was clear of vegetation.
Again, there was a lot of shooting right around first light, while we were still setting up. After a while things quieted down. "Well , the first hour’s over," Bill commented as the morning was finally quiet. "Now’s when the real duck hunting starts," Norb said.
To these veteran duck hunters, the hunting process was more important, and more fun, than simply trying to kill a lot of ducks. They weren’t really interested it trying to pop anything that buzzed by during first light while they were still organizing their strategy for the day. They wanted to bring ducks to them, through a combined use of decoys, calls and camouflage. That’s what duck hunting is all about.
I was nervous about shooting at the wrong time, possibly scaring away ducks that might be coming closer, but I think I started to get a feel for it, trying to stay on the conservative side and thinking it was better to watch one go by and not shoot than to scare off some that were coming in.
Not that I wasn’t doing my share of shooting. I was surprised how hard they were to hit. I can hit quail, and a duck is a lot bigger. But I think ducks are also faster, farther away, and require more shot to fall.
Going into waterfowl hunting, it seemed you needed to know a lot. My first day, it seemed you had to have a lot of gear. Day two, it became obvious that there was a lot of skill involved at several different points.
It takes skill to spot the ducks. The veterans in my hunting party saw the ducks coming in before me about every time. It takes skill to know when to shoot, not too soon or too late. Even when you get that down, it takes skill to hit one, that might be going 60 - 70 miles per hour. And when you do hit one and it splashes down in the water, it takes skill to find it.
When I got my first duck, a Green Wing Teal, I received a hearty round of congratulations from everyone in my hunting party. I was officially part of the club. My second and third ducks I got at the same time, a Ring Neck drake and hen. They were flying very close together, clearly they were in love. Not a bad way to go, really, for a duck. They never knew what hit them. My fourth was a Gadwall that was in a group that buzzed right over the top of us. He was close when I shot him, and he nearly fell on us. That one was pretty easy to find.
The rain tappered off early Tuesday morning, and although the sun never came out, Eagle Bluffs is still a beautiful place to see the day wake up, with fog rising off of Perche Creek on one side and the Missouri River on the other. The bluffs had a smokey fog hanging over them all morning, and when we weren't seeing ducks we were watching pelicans, gulls and even an eagle.
I think I had my four by about 9 a.m. I was beginning to think I might reach my limit of six, but the rest of my morning wasn't as productive, although my hunting partners did get some later in the morning. Bill got a mallard hen in about the last five minutes of the day.
Tomorrow I go back. And I've got another number 9.