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There is a general sense of duty to add to ones journal when an outdoorsman takes part in one of those hunts (and we’ve all been there) that just comes together with very little effort and an exorbitant amount of luck. We had been looking forward to the start of this season like none before. We had a good team of guys now in the group, with some new up and coming hunters that were ready to join in and hopefully start downing some game. It was also to be the first year in the field for my brother-in-law Tanner’s and my Chesapeake Bay retrievers that we had welcomed into our families last December. Excitement was an understatement.
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| Jeff poses with his Chesapeake. |
Four o’clock couldn’t come quick enough for me on that Friday afternoon. I had been eagerly anticipating the time when I could hop in my truck and just get out onto the highway. So much so that I had the old Tundra packed and loaded a week before our departure time. When that closing bell finally rang for me at the office, I was in the truck within minutes and on my way towards our rendezvous point. Kirk (a.k.a. Mad Dog) and Tanner were quick to load up the vehicles with their equipment and we hit the road.
We rolled through the town of Sedgewick around 6:00 pm, just shortly before the birds began to fly. It’s usually a safe bet for any waterfowl hunter that is undertaking a field shoot to spend countless hours driving the back roads looking for a quality shoot. Not this time. We began to head north on the quiet oil road that led us in the direction of our camp where we were to meet our fourth, and newest member of the hunting party, Ole’ Lazy Eye Schmutz.
We decided to do a fly-by on a cluster of three pea fields we had scouted two weeks prior. Our jaws hit the floor when the first targeted field we rolled up to was playing host to hundreds upon hundreds of birds, all lined up in a sort of chaotic order of mass hysteria that was impossible to miss from the road. To rub salt into the proverbial wound, they were flying in from all directions. To any experienced bird hunter this usually means they are coming in from many different roosts, which usually equates to an action-packed morning. However, we were convinced the field would be spoken for given the ease of which we literally stumbled upon it.
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| A proud mouthful of mallard duck. |
The hunting gods were looking down on us that evening, as we pulled out of the landowner’s driveway grinning from ear to ear... permission secured!
I hopped on the phone and radioed in to our fourth that we had already found our field and to meet us roadside to gaze upon the spectacle. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, there is something to be said about watching that many birds go through their feeding rituals on the side of a quiet gravel road while you daydream about the potential shoot the following morning.
I was first up the next morning and quickly made my way over to the only surefire alarm clock I have used while at camp, freshly made coffee. The team was up within short order, Mad Dog was grumbling unpleasantries at me from the back bunk and you could feel the excitement was beginning to build. All was normal amongst the crew. We slurped down a couple cups of coffee, loaded up the truck and hit the road.
We rolled into the pea field still under the cover of darkness and began the task of drawing up our decoy spread. Mad Dog and Schmutz were dealt the task of putting some finishing touches on the blind while Tanner and I thought and re-thought where every single decoy was to be placed. We finished our pre-shoot chores and still had 45 minutes to spare before legal light.
That final countdown to legal shooting time is always a struggle. Your mind begins to play games with you—maybe they’ll come, maybe they won’t. Will my shooting be on today? Or will I be chasing tail feathers all morning?
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| The boys celebrating their good fortune. |
The action came fast and furious. The first flock of the day, aside from the fifty or sixty ducks that came in low to peruse our set, was three big Canadas. A good warm-up for what we knew was just over the horizon. The three birds came right in. I made the decision to stay off the calls for the most part that morning, as the birds were committing long before getting any sort of view of us with the sun still sitting low in the sky. Usually that first flock is fairly indicative as to how the day is about to unfold. We waited for the birds to get within 20 yards, at which point I called the shot. The symphonic sound of shotgun shells going off in the morning is music to any hunter’s ears and is sure to put a grin on any waterfowler’s face. All three Canadas hit the dirt. It was looking to be one heck of a day.
After finally determining that our shooting was on with the three birds already down (we still can’t agree which one of the four of us missed!), we were ready for anything that was going to be thrown our way.
It ended up being one of those hunts where your senses are on complete overload from the stimulus going on around you. Birds coming from the left, right, front, back, and I swear right from underneath us! We were privileged enough to literally turn away flock after flock of ducks solely to accommodate the larger birds we could see in the sky a few hundred yards beyond. Birds began to rain down. It was glorious! Before we could get another round into our chambers, let alone send the dogs out to get the downed birds, another fifty geese were twenty feet overhead looking to join our group of decoys below. Even the new guy, Ole Lazy Eye, was smacking geese left and right.
The adrenalin that flows through your veins when you feel the vortex of wings and wind a few feet over your head, guys working the calls while building the birds into a chaotic gong show, and the subtle ‘click’ as shells are forced into their actions by electrified hunters, are the things that draw me back to the field each year.
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| An excellent harvest of big Canadas. |
We finally called it a day as we drilled our last bird, bringing us to our day’s limit. We finished off the afternoon at one of our permanent blinds on the bank of a fair-sized pond targeting ducks, rounding out the days limit. In the end, it was a fantastic outing. We had a new hunter officially hooked on bird hunting, and ultimately had the privilege of sharing the field with a couple of great dogs and a great group of friends. After all, that’s really what being an outdoorsman is all about. ■
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