Jumping Ducks

“It was a beautiful morning,” is the last phrase I’d use to describe this particular morning. My buddy hopped in the car and we squinted our eyes as we drove into the dark with snow swirling around us. It was the kind of snow that resembles the intro to Star Wars where all those stars against a black canvas are floating toward you at high speed. A gas station pit stop for fresh coffee and granola bars was the last bit of warmth we had that morning.

We had arrived to the pond we would be hunting at and I still have vivid memories of closing that rusted steel gate that led to the ranch and fighting the spring lock to close it with frozen bare hands. We dragged out the decoys and my friend arranged them methodically. The sheep that was enclosed in the pen where the pond was, peered over as if to say, “they simply will not fall for those decoys,” and maybe I even heard him scoff in that early gray dawn. We stepped into the pond and I felt the cold water squeeze my legs; my waders clung to my shins. We lowered down into the reeds and waited for morning to arrive.

It was ten minutes before shooting light. The snow, like icy darts, blew sideways and my cheeks reddened with each flake that met my face. The wind blew steady gusts around fifteen miles per hour. The ground was covered in a layer of crunchy snow and the sky was only one shade grayer than the white ground. Although day was beginning each tree, the barn, and the nearby bull on the ranch we were hunting were hardly more than shadowy silhouettes. The highland cattle appeared even more beastly in the heavy, dark air. It was bitter cold and by any common dictionary definition, it was far from a perfect day. It was, however, a perfect day to hunt ducks and we were going by that book instead. Not a minute after legal light that raspy duck holler pierced through the cold air. “Shoot shoot!” My friend Hayden shouted and pulled his shotgun trigger just once before the duck made its final flight toward the pond. “Nice shot!” I told him and we watched the ducks still body float across the pond to the shore with help from the wind. He collected his mallard or greenhead shall I say and returned to the dry spiny patch of reeds where we stood knee deep in the water. We waited and watched. Another twenty minutes went by and we squatted back down into the reeds as two ducks flew towards us. Just as I slowly shouldered my shotgun, the ducks slowed and landed in a creek just a couple of hundred yards before the pond. We bitched for a minute then tilted our heads and returned our eyes to the milky sky. A couple of hundred geese swirled around us beyond shooting distance but close enough to make us sigh and sometimes giggle with their obnoxious honks. Even more laughable was my friend’s imitation of them through his goose call. I wondered what those squawks meant in their mysterious language, crafted by tone and the time of the year.

After watching action from afar we decided to switch things up. Hayden gestured to walk over to him and explained his plans to go and jump the ducks in the creek that had landed there over a half an hour ago. We began walk crouched over along the creek, distanced enough from it to remain stealthy but close enough to stir up those nervous ducks. We walked and walked and finally came to the part of the creek where it flowed into the pen with the bull and sure enough! Two ducks flew into the air with what sounded like several vulgar quacks. I pressed my cheek against the cool and smooth wooden stock, held tightly to my shotgun, and swung the bead toward the flapping duck… a loud shot went off, and then one more.

An eagerly and improperly placement of the stock left me feeling like I had shot myself in the chest. I found instant shame in my poor reaction in a time when I should have been anything but unprepared. With a pain in my chest and a beating heart I watched the duck lower toward the ground as if he were a plane running out of gas and then he summer salted into the snowy grass.

I immediately began to ask Hayden a lot of questions, “Is he dead? How bad was that shot? Was that shot okay?” and I am sure a lot of other rhetorical questions. We began following the gate line to where the duck was. At eighty yards out, we watched his wing flap and debated momentarily if that was him still moving or the wind pushing his feathers around. Finally, we made the decision to hop the fence and run toward it in an effort to close the distance in case this duck somehow popped up and flew off. Once we were within twenty yards, we realized that duck was in fact dead. I stood over him, then reached around his neck and pulled him up toward my face to get a good look at him. His emerald head was slick and round with bloodstains around his orange nostrils. His sapphire and violet feathers along his wing was soft to the touch and vibrant to the eye. His neck was flimsy and his body was by all definitions, lifeless. In the moments while I stood and admired my first waterfowl kill it had occurred to Hayden that we had misjudged the fencing and we were standing in the pen with the highland bull. The bull's hair hung over his eyes and the he turned to face us. Without a word we sprinted toward the fence and swung our legs over the barbed and sturdy wood gate. We turned back and watched as the bull paced around, agitated but hardly interested in us. We returned to our spot in the reeds, and hunted heavily into the early afternoon when the cold had finally convinced us to head on home.

The gamification of duck hunting is incomparable. Locking eyes with your buddy through the dry yellow reeds waiting for the call to, “shoot,” is riveting. The endless sky and the tricks that magpies and ravens and even planes can play on your eyes are humorous as you wait for the animated flapping ducks to arrive. Sitting in the water, it is as if you are a true predator perched in the tall grass patiently awaiting the arrival of a momentarily oblivious prey. The trembling of fingers against the cold shotgun stock in December is both adrenaline and below zero temperature induced. I forget often that I have a home to return to when I am out duck hunting. You find yourself laughing, and telling whispered stories, and then all at once collectively aiming and shooting for your quarry. It is the type of hunting that the old pictures you see in gas stations out west somehow do a good job of explaining. A wet dog, the smell of tobacco in your hunting partners mouth as he calls the shots, wrestling with the dry reeds, and carrying heavy colorful ducks around your neck as you make your way home. While I am deeply passionate about big game hunting, the essence of chasing waterfowl is captivating. When my first duck fell slowly to the ground, like a talented pilot was landing him unexpectedly, I imagined his soul continuing to fly along into that perfectly white misty December sky, unalarmed by the loss of his body. While it wasn't a perfect shot, I felt grateful for the duck's fairly quick descent and the gifts I would receive in return. I often find myself out walking or sitting at red lights now, long after the season has passed though the winter remains, and I watch those clumsy ducks fly overhead, hollering and lively. I watch them land in a nearby pond at the crossroads, and I remember that day and my first duck, fondly.