Enjoy this continuation, in which we actually hunt ducks (and coincidentally my 50th posting here).
The morning that duck season opened, the whole family loaded up and departed for Pocket Lake before any sane person had risen. We bee-lined for Pocket Lake WPA, only to arrive and find it already chock full of eager hunters, almost three hours before shooting time began. It was a wild disappointment, but in typical fashion, my father had put together a backup plan based on a similar experience some years prior.
Unfortunately for one of my brothers, the new plan meant extra driving, and with an early morning commitment, that meant that he and my mother had to turn around to go home. This still left me, my youngest brother, and my father to venture onward to a new, unnamed Waterfowl Production Area that would be less busy, and with more open water than Pocket Lake.
Our arrival at the next WPA was met by another group of hunters with a young black lab eagerly waiting to set up their equipment on the open pond. My dad conversed with them briefly, figuring out where on the slough they were going to get set up, and then returned to our Jeep to map out where we wanted to get set up.
After a few more minutes of planning, we exited the Jeep, grabbed our waders, and marched off into the WPA guided by the light from our flashlights and headlamps. I was weighed down by my Grandfather’s old Remington shotgun, a thermos of coffee, and a box of chocolate chip cookies. Since my youngest brother had grown up a lot since I had left home over eight years prior, he was finally carrying the large mesh sack of duck decoys that had typically been my charge when we were younger.
It took us a few minutes to make it all the way to the far end of the slough, and when we arrived, Max and I set about throwing fake, plastic mallards out on the pond in what we considered to be a believable pattern. It did not take us long to get the decoys spread out across the mucky water, and we returned to take up positions and wait for the sun to rise enough for shooting hours to begin.
The three of us stood there in the pre-dawn darkness, concealed by cattails and other swamp plants. In the distance there were flocks of Canada Geese honking loudly while they began their flights across the countryside in massive flocks. We listened to the flying Canadian cacophony while we waited impatiently for a chance at our prey.
We did not have to wait long. The first duck flew directly over me just as legal shooting hours began and muffled shotgun blasts echoed across the countryside. Speeding over my head, the duck took me by surprise, and my first hasty shot with the 31L missed by a wide margin, the hen barely altering her path to avoid getting shot down.
From then on, it was pretty steady shooting. Flocks of three or four ducks would come into our decoys, or pass close in front of us, we would shoot, and for the first several flocks, we would exclusively miss. One mallard flared directly in front of me, over the decoys less than fifteen yards in front of me. She was frozen there as I sprung from my hide, leveling the old shotgun at her while she tried to abort her landing and take off again. I slammed the trigger as the bead of the shotgun was still a foot over her head.
Another miss.
“Spencer,” you could hear the disappointment and incredulity in Dad’s voice, “how could you miss that one?”
“Still shaking the rust out, I guess.” I was getting frustrated, although I hadn’t pulled the trigger on a shotgun in almost two years before that morning.
The next flock that came in shortly after the hen Mallard made her escape. I readied myself for the shot, running through the list of things I remembered from my trapshooting days. Keep my cheek on the stock, follow the target with my eyes, pull the trigger, follow through.
Setting their wings, the mallards came in to glide, and then started to pull away at the last second. Seizing the opportunity, I pulled the shotgun into my shoulder, lined up the bead, and pulled the trigger.
The lowest mallard crumpled to the water’s surface.
“Finally!” I said as Max and Dad chased the retreating ducks with ineffective blasts in their general direction. Dad sent Alex out to retrieve the duck, which was accomplished with some amount of coaxing. For a dog who was supposed to have an affinity for both water and retrieving, Alex seemed to be pretty indifferent to heading out into the cold slough to pick up our ducks that morning. With just the right amount of coaxing, Dad did get her out there, and she picked up the mallard and brought her back to us.
By the end of the morning, we had bagged four ducks. I had shot two Mallards and a fast moving Blue-Wing Teal, and Dad had killed a third Mallard. We wrapped up shooting just before lunch, and headed back home to indulge in some soup that Mom had made while we were out hunting.
Max had to go back to Minneapolis that afternoon, leaving just my dad and I to explore other options for the afternoon hunt. Decidedly warmer than the morning, my dad remarked that this was the first time he had gone back out to hunt ducks in the afternoon since we had gone on a pretty successful late season diving-duck hunt at Mud Lake many years prior.
Dad and I opted to try going to the Pocket Lake for the afternoon, so we loaded Alex back in the Jeep and took off shortly after lunch. Since neither of my two younger brothers were available, it fell to me to carry the large mesh bag of decoys out to the edge of the slough we would be setting up our blind at.
The afternoon sun was warm, and after setting out the decoys I settled into my spot cradling the old 31L across my lap. I dozed off almost immediately.
I drifted in and out of sleep over the course of the afternoon, awakened suddenly by Dad quietly alerting me, “Two coming in at twelve o’clock!”
Spurred into wakefulness, I rolled up and onto my knees, bringing my grandfather’s shotgun up with me. The two brown ducks came swooping into our decoys, setting their wings and stalling out as my dad and I brought our shotguns to bear. A flurry of blasts sounded, and the two ducks plummeted into the grass next to the slough.
After a few minutes of searching for our downed quarry, my dad and I picked the ducks up and looked at them.
“What are they?” Dad asked me. The ducks were between Teal and Mallards in size, and fairly monochromatic with mottled brown plumage.
“I don’t know.”
Dad pulled out his phone and started scrolling through a DNR provided duck identification guide while I returned to my napping spot.
“I think they are Gadwells.” Dad shouted over.
“Makes sense to me.” I responded, already dozing off.
The rest of the afternoon passed uneventfully, and Dad and I packed up to head home and prepare the ducks for dinner. In the past we had usually skinned our ducks, however Dad decided that he wanted to try plucking them this time. So we sat in the front yard among a swirling flurry of feathers, plucking all of the ducks before taking a blow torch to them to burn off the remaining fuzz.
Within a few hours, my parents, grandparents, brother, and I were sitting around the dinner table with a pile of picked over roasted duck bones. The meal was delicious, and we still had one more morning of hunting ahead of us, and this time Elliot and one of his friends were going to be able to tag along.
