Regardless of what you’ve been told your entire life, there are not four seasons in the year. There are only two; hunting season and getting ready for hunting season. I like the first one the best and thank goodness it is finally here. I am tired of washing, patching, and painting decoys and believe me; I own a ton of them. A girl can never have too many decoys and if you could see my basement and garage you would see that I practice what I preach.
I am normally a pretty responsible person but during hunting season something seems to go haywire. The house doesn’t get cleaned, the mail doesn’t get opened, telephone calls don’t get returned, blog entries get submitted late, and my family becomes convinced (yet again) that I have truly gone crazy. It’s not crazy, it’s just duck fever.
Bird dogs also like the hunting season far better than the getting ready season. These dogs were born to work and they are happiest when they have a job. My dog Annie doesn’t seem to care if the house is a mess or the mail doesn’t get opened. She also doesn’t seem to care where we hunt or what kind of birds we hunt for, just that we hunt and hunt often. Annie and I are a good match.
I do most of my waterfowl hunting in California’s Sacramento Valley which is the most important wintering area for waterfowl in the Pacific Flyway. The early October aerial survey conducted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reported more than 329,000 white-fronted geese and 321,000 pintail already present on the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge Complex alone. It’s only going to get better. Waterfowl hunting in the Sacramento Valley is at its best during early December through mid-January. I will get after it hard in the Valley starting in late November. In the meantime, I will do most of my hunting in other areas. Right now I am in South Dakota. Yesterday the pheasants won. Hopefully, we will do better today.
I love this season. It’s time. It’s my time.
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