Lovely Weather for a Duck

The mood at the Quick Draw at 4:30 a.m. on Monday morning seemed more somber than Saturday’s opening day. This may be because some of those present had already shown up for two mornings and hadn’t drawn an opportunity to hunt yet. It might have been the rainy weather. Or maybe by day three, people were starting to get tired. Maybe it was all three things combined. People were still optimistic - you had to be optimistic to be there - but not quite as exuberant as two days prior.
I was holding number 14, which meant my party was guaranteed a hunt, but our remaining choices of sites was going to be pretty limited this far down on the list. But my mentor Bill said he’s seen some strange things happen, and thought we might end up with a good chance of getting into some ducks.
It was raining pretty hard when we went out at 5 a.m. Bill took the boat around to meet us, and Joe and I took a garden cart around to a rendezvous point. A side note: Of all the hunts I’ve been on, the split up and meet at point x later only works as planned about one percent of the time.
This morning it did work, more or less. At least we were close enough to Bill to figure out where he was, and then we got together. I helped Bill place the decoys, and immediately learned I had paid exactly $2.49 cents too much for my $2.50 waders on the garage sale, because they weren’t worth two cents. Both legs leaked - a lot. Fortunately it was probably about 55 degrees, a fluke for a November morning, so I just dealt with being filled with water all morning.
We got set up and took our seats. During the first hour or so Eagle Bluffs sounds a little like a war zone, but with a lot more quacking. But none of those eruptions of gunfire were coming from my hunting party. Bill and Joe thought we were doing what we could with what we were given, and weren’t complaining.
"This is a lot better than having to get back in your car and go home after the draw," Joe said. "Hmm," I thought. "I’m glad he told me that, because I kind of like my home, and I wasn’t so sure I still felt as lucky about drawing three hunts this week."
As I sat in my water-filled waders, a vaguely recalled being surprised at the temperature in which hypothermia can set in when you're soaked in water. I'd heard it on a news story about swimming in the ocean. Wasn't it something like 50 degrees, maybe even 60? These are the things you think about when you're not seeing ducks. 
Although I must admit, even though I left the calling up to my experienced partners, time went by quickly. I can grow pretty impatient deer hunting, and never stay in one spot for seven hours like we did on this duck hunt.
We ended the day without anyone in our party ever firing a shot, and about as wet as I would be if I had jumped in the water head-first. When I returned home I put everything in the dryer except my shotgun (it wouldn't fit), and gave it a good drying and oiling. The next day I had a 9.