It’s an early January morning; the sun is just about to rise. I check my wrist watch…6:23am…only one more minute till shooting time. My buddy looks over at me; we don’t even need to speak…we both know in one minute, we are given full range to shoot us some ducks. We then look out past the brush that’s keeping us camouflaged from the winged creatures above us. The greenish-brown water in front of us is so placid besides the small ripples that we create using our decoy jerk rig. Finally, after the never-ending minute flicks to 6:24am, we know it’s time to scour the skies.
A whistling sound from the East begins to echo above us. I look at my buddy and whisper, “Get out the calls…we need to work them in.” He begins to give a mallard hail call because as all duck hunters know…you have to make the birds think that where you and your decoys are, is the perfect place to land and rest. And the best way to do is by making them think a variety of birds are already enjoying that spot.
“Waaint! Waaint! Waaint! Waaint! Waaint!”…the call blows. “Here they come…keep calling them in. Try another call…Nant.Nant.Nant.Nant.Nant.” The birds begin descending in perfect range, wings cupped, ready for a steady landing. “Okay, Take ‘em!” Me and my buddy jolt up out of the duck blind, 12-gauge shotguns loaded and ready to fire as we lock in on the flock of Green-winged Teal birds. I fire first. “Bang! Bang!” Two down…only one shot left in my semi-automatic shotgun…”Bang! Hah! Got another one!” I exclaim in excitement. It’s my buddy’s turn to finish off what’s left. “Boom!..Boom!” Sweet…the last straggling duck plummets into the water. “Tug, go get ‘em!”
Tug, my eight-month-old puppy looks up at me as if to say, “Are you kidding me?” So with adrenaline still pumping, I scurry out of the well-built blind and carefully wade through the muddy water to collect the ducks that my overly expensive “hunting” dog was supposed to already retrieved for me. Just as I approach the first bird, floating belly up, I hear Tug’s canon ball splash behind me as he jumps into the water to follow. He continues to swim in circles about me as I try to get him to take at least one duck back to the blind. Nope. Not a chance. My buddy stands on guard as I finish collecting the rest, and I can’t help but laugh that my puppy is still doggy paddling around while still refusing to carry a bird in. “Stubborn shit,” I say under my breath.
Back in the blind. Time seems to be flying by as the sun continues to rise over us. We haven’t seen any birds in quite some time, but at least the will chill has risen from below freezing to a comfortable forty degrees. Sitting in our portable camo chairs, we continue to look to sky for any migrating birds. This time there’s only two birds heading in our direction. Man, I hope they are Green-heads…or a banded Green-head…that would be even better. I hold my breath as I see that they are flying directly towards our decoy layout. “Pull on the jerk rig. Let’s see if we can get them land in our decoys.” My buddy begins to snap and release on the line. Soon the Mallards get within 40 yards…30 yards…20 yards…then…”Bang!” I knock one sideways. My buddy releases his fire…”Boom! Boom!” His birds tucks and splashes into the water. I try to shoot again while my bird is still in close proximity. “Bang! Bang!” Finally, the bird surrenders to the inevitable and falls from the air. “Wooh!” I yell. Now it’s time to see if I caught myself a banded bird. Of course, Tug refuses to follow my directions and I wind up out in the water once again. As I’m getting closer to where my bird landed, I can’t help but breath heavily, praying that this bird has a shiny silver band around its foot. I start to close in on its location…only an arm distance away by now…I grab the head to lift it out of the water…and what do you know? There is the shiny band I have been dreaming about seeing for years now. “Dude!” I call back to my buddy. “It’s freakin banded! Oh my God! Wooh!!!” My buddy flies out of the blind. “No kidding? You lucky SOB!” I just stand in the water, scoping out the infamous band, trying to grasp that it only took two years and the last day of duck season to finally get one, and I can’t seem to do anything but contract my facial muscles and smile. “I am a lucky SOB,” I say to myself.
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