Murphy’s Law is an adage that is typically stated as: “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.” I’m under the impression that this is my waterfowl hunting creed. I’ve stepped into 6 feet of suspected knee-deep water, been attacked by spiders, lost in the woods and even lost my decoy bags – if you’re hunting with me, it will go wrong.
 
I’m notorious for hunting blunders and hosting a bad case of terrible luck. Last weekend, a good friend of mine called me to share his experience and I have to share it with everyone because it ranks in the top tier of Murphy’s Law regarding waterfowl hunting.

My friend, name omitted for fear of ridicule, lives south of Denver, Colo., and leased some property outside of Greely, Colo., along the north fork of the Platte River. He built a blind along the edge of the river so he and his golden retriever, Indy, could spend a few mornings hunting this fall.
 
Making the nearly two-hour drive Friday morning, his optimism soaring as the temperature had dipped into single digits and the weather forecaster was calling for a crispy 1 degree morning. He left the truck well before shooting time and walked towards his blind. I can picture him and Indy marching in the darkness, the cold air creating a fog as they exhaled with every step. The excitement of the morning hunt surrounding them, there was quickness in their movements.

The Platte River’s water level is extremely high and with his blind being built earlier in the year; the water has risen, nearly touching the bottom of the blind. Merely a few steps in front of the blind the dark swirling waters of the Platte rush passed. Reaching the blind, he leans over to knock the ice off the Master Lock he keeps on the blind to discourage trespassers, then he reaches into his pocket for the keys and doesn’t feel them. As he pulls his hand from his parka the keys must have caught on his parka sleeve and before even Indy can blink an eye, the keys fly from his pocket into the Colorado pre-dawn darkness.

“I just want to tell you how discouraging it is to be standing there in the dark and hear the unmistakable sound of your car keys hitting the water with a bliiiimpppp,” my anonymous friend claims. “It’s one degree out here and you just kind of stand there asking yourself, ‘Did that just happen?’”

Oh, yes, it did happen and two hours away from home his keys were washing down stream. When I spoke to him, he was sitting on a log along the side of the road waiting on a farmer to drive by so he can hitch a ride into town to rent a car. Fortunately, he contacted the property owner who lives in the area and the guy let him borrow his truck to drive home and get a spare set of keys.

Fourteen hours after leaving his house in his truck, he returns in his truck. The long day produced memories from the field that will never be forgotten, ever. He calls me to explain how he just got a voicemail from the dealership to tell him the replacement key will cost $230 because of the theft protection system, another jab from Murphy’s Law, but more than expected at this point.

I ask him if he is planning on going again this week and he explains that he is, but the issue now is that his blind is locked. He just laughs, “Isn’t duck hunting great!”

Share your experiences regarding Murphy’s Law while waterfowling.

In my life, holidays have always been a time to get outdoors. Whether it be fishing during the summer or hunting during the fall, a holiday break is always considered a time to be in the field. Every year, I look forward to continuing the tradition of getting together with friends and family to hunt during Thanksgiving. Typically, the late November holiday yields great success as plentiful waterfowl numbers are usually close by.

This season has been quite a bit different according to other hunting buddies across the nation and according to my own observations. The unseasonably mild weather throughout November has allowed many birds to stay farther north than usual. The cold blast we had during early October throughout the Dakotas had many hunters licking their chops in hopes of early migrations. In reality, the cold front in early October pushed a few birds but the following mild temperatures allowed many birds to remain north, way north. For the past eight seasons, I have been able to traditionally count on great hunting in my area for Lesser Canadas, Snows, Specks and Mallards by the first week of November. This year was different. A slow trickle of what I call “Calendar Migrating Geese” have been taking place for nearly a month but many birds have been flying over and have been reluctant to stop. Although a few geese have staged along the way, we have not seen concentrations that resemble the past. We are still awaiting the northerners that are on the way. On the other hand in different areas, the birds have been in great numbers.

During this past summer, some of my old stomping grounds were clipped by heavy rains, resulting in large areas covered by shallow sheet water. Up through Thanksgiving, many crops such as corn and soybeans had not been harvested due to the amount of water pooled in low lying areas of many fields. This wet climate created some of the best duck habitat known to man; standing flooded corn and beans. During the month of November, many traveling birds were stopped as the conditions were favorable and food sources were plentiful. The cooling trends just before Thanksgiving concentrated many birds into numerous consolidated areas. This was likely the last “Big Flock” concentration before the wintery weather froze the water holes and broke them apart. The sight was spectacular but that sight has come to an end with a major cold front. Although a few birds remain to battle out the cold and keep water open, many birds have begun to migrate south.

With the season ending throughout that region in less than a week, many hunters cannot believe that the birds lasted this long. Typically, ice fishermen are out drilling the first holes by Thanksgiving but that did not happen this year. I do know one thing, the mild conditions and abundant food sources have allowed the birds to put on the feedbag and produce some very healthy ducks!

It’s been some time ago; however, I remember the first duck I shot.

I also recall the first time I hunted ducks with my dad, my first duck boat, the first time I hunted by myself and my first dozen decoys. At some point, I began to consider myself a duck hunter. These “firsts” were key parts of the process of initially being infected with the duck-hunting bug and ultimately having it develop into a chronic disease.

Last weekend, I believe my 11-year-old grandson caught it as well. He’s been exposed for several years. Early outings were more boat rides than hunting trips. After that, earlier mornings, overnights, BB gun, duck calling and his first mallard characterized a gradual aging in waterfowl hunting. Last weekend, however, we had an opportunity to permanently burn the visual image of mallards over the decoys into his young memory. And the result was a limit of mallards with a pintail and a redhead as exclamation points to a memorable morning.

He certainly was impressed with shooting a limit of ducks. However, I was impressed with his comments about the sunrise, the dog work, how good the hot chocolate was, him poling the duck boat a half-mile back to shore and his desire to continue watching ducks work even after he was done shooting.

However, this note is not so much about my grandson and his first limit of ducks – well, maybe a little – but more so about how “duck hunters” are made.

What is the difference between someone who shoots ducks and someone who considers themselves a “duck hunter?” What were the events, the turning points, or the associations that led you to now consider yourself a “duck hunter?” How important was who you hunted with, where you hunted or how successful the hunting was?

A duck hunting lodge isn’t complete without an old dog. Even the finest duck lodges in the nation have a weathered Labrador retriever limping about, sniffing around for discarded lunch scraps and possibly a duck or two to pick up, only to get the feathers in their mouth one more time. Bay Flats Lodge in Seadrift, Texas, one of the finest lodges I’ve visited has several dogs, but one looks and lives the role of “duck lodge dog.”

Brooke is a 15-year-old chocolate Lab whose feeble back legs look as if they could give out at any moment, yet, it’s her job to keep an eye on the place and everyone who visits. Of course, she has designated and devoted herself to this tedious task.

Lexi is no stranger to airboats or long retrieves. Here she is resting on the front of the airboat as we pick up decoys.

Walking down the stairs from the main kitchen and eating area, the last step onto the concrete is answered every time with the click-clack of Brooke’s toenails as she creeps along making sure every hunter or fisherman has everything he needs. The click-clack has a slow-but-steady rhythm, because “speed” is a word no longer associated with Brooke. Brooke relied on her speed back in the days of retrieving ducks for her master and Bay Flats Lodge owner, Captain Chris Martin, but these days she epitomizes the slow atmosphere and relaxed aura of the Texas coast. As hunters and fisherman relax on the covered patio, enjoying the sunsets and sharing stories about their day’s adventures, Brooke can always be found off to one side, watching over her clients and dozing a few minutes here and there.

Capt. Chris Martin walks back to the blind with Sadie following a miraculous retrieve on a cripple.

Brooke’s body is deteriorating and she has been known to walk out in front of a golf cart or two in the early morning, never hearing it coming. A quick yell from the driver, and once the headlights hit her, she realizes she’s made a mistake. She takes a calculated step back to let the cart pass, but shows no shame as she keeps moving in the same direction, still headed off to do whatever it was she had planned. After hunting with the guys from Bay Flats Lodge, I understand where her pride comes from. Long saltwater-flats retrieves on diving redheads and pintails is how Brooke lived her life. Nestled into the brush or blind, eagerly awaiting another mesmerizing Texas coast sunrise, is where she grew up. She’s spent more time in flats boats and air boats than most and has retrieved more birds than 50 other dogs I know combined.

She runs with an eight-year-old black lab, Crash, whose bad hips have kept him from the long boat rides to the flats and freshwater marshes where flashes of wigeon and gadwall litter the coastal backdrop. Their eyes tell the story. They know they are duck dogs, even until the end. They have too much pride to rest when guys pile out of boats and trucks returning from a morning hunt. Both dogs greet the hunters like lovers awaiting a war heroes’ arrival. They are more than likely jealous of the other dogs, but they don’t mind slipping back to sleep in the cool grass when everyone disappears from the docks well before the sun rises.

Red's passion and excitement is an excellent representation of a true waterfowl hunting dog.

They sleep in the shade provided by airboats, trucks and a golf cart. They don’t ever have to move, yet, Brook and Crash greet hunters as if they are the owners and operators of Bay Flats. Sitting under the covered patio, both dogs seem to materialize like a flock of green-winged teal when bacon hits the grill. The wag of a tail and a head on a knee might not be enough to convince some to fork over a sample of whatever is coming off the grill, but Brooke knows she has earned as much bacon as she wants. She merely steps back, cocks her head to one side and stares at you with a noticeably piercing glare seen only in the eyes of hunting dogs. I gave in immediately. Her eyes are beginning to cloud slightly, but the intensity holds in her pupils and I can imagine her picking out a flock of low-flying redheads coming across the bay from 500 yards, or marking a downed pintail drake in a rolling bay. Now it’s the bacon that sets her eyes ablaze.

There are other dogs. We hunted with Red, Sadie and Lexi, all showing the professionalism of their owners and class of the lodge they represent. These are Texas-coast duck dogs. and their puffed-out chests and muscled physiques explain it all. Unlike my dog, they don’t have to practice every day—they hunt every day, and they do it well.

Brooke and I at 3:30 a.m. as hunters were loading up for the morning hunt.

Before I pulled away from Bay Flats Lodge after enjoying some of the finest wing shooting I’ve experienced, I thanked Capt. Martin for a great experience, and then I went to say goodbye to old Brooke. She was standing at the edge of the parking lot looking out onto the bay. She stood there staring as if she could see the large rafts of redheads, wigeon, gadwall and pintails. Her scan of the bay complete, she walked over, gave me a slight nod and slowly strode to a shady spot under the deck. She had to get rested up—she’s not as agile as she used to be and she has a new group of guests arriving in just a few hours.

Discussions in the local diner have shifted toward waterfowl hunting and it made me realize that duck season would be here before I know it. It also made me realize I had a lot to do before I was ready.

I sat at home last night digging through decoy boxes and bags preparing for the season ahead. As I pulled out each decoy, old and new, I carefully checked each one with a fine-tooth comb for any details that need to be touched up. This season I am going to have a new approach with my decoy spreads which will make it easier to transport and store them from week to week. Seeing the Texas rigs, I shopped around for the best deal and found that you can make your own for cheap.

I begin by cutting off the old decoy string and weights and I neatly place the old weights aside for future use. Cleaning up dozens of old decoys can be a daunting task, but a fun one because you are constantly remembering past duck hunts and dreaming of the ones to come. I wipe off all decoys with a wet rag and as they dry I take Armor All to them to give them a hint of shine. As the decoys are sitting, shining in the last bit of the day’s sun, I start re-stringing them.

I make loops at one end of the decoys and crimp them down, which leaves me with a loop at one end of my decoys to attach a carabineer. Then I slide the weight on the decoy cord and loop the other end through the keel of the decoy and crimp it off. As I finish a dozen decoys, I hook them to the carabineer and hang them on the wall. As you hook the looped end opposite of the keel, the weight slides down the decoy string to make it almost impossible for them to tangle. Since I will be mainly hunting shallow-rice fields and timber, I only need about 3 feet of decoy cord. As the last dozen decoys are nearing completion I put them through a little tangle test to see how my new rigs are going to work. I whirl them round and round, put them in and out of the decoy bag and end up with no tangles. The decoys all fall back in place and are easy to take back off the carabineer. My new strung up decoys are going to be great for transporting around this year and much easier to store, hanging on the wall.

Doing little things every week to prepare for the season helps get me in the mindset that duck season is right around the corner and now I am ready for opening day with my new Texas-rigged decoys.

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.

There is nothing better for a waterfowler than having a secret spot that produces year after year, the kind of place that you can take an elder or the next generation because you know that you will experience a quality hunt. Some hunters look hard to find a place they can rely on, other hunters have some property and they create a place that they will always have a hunt.

I hunted one of these honey holes recently when I was invited to my uncle’s property. When I got the call from my cousin, he told me “bring extra shells, its gonna be a fast-action shoot.” I’m not sure if he was making fun of my shooting skills or if he was promising a good hunt.

The “duck pond” was a voluntary restoration implemented to draw area ducks and flight ducks to enjoy high quality hunts. The pond was built to allow drawdown and to impound water for the fall migration. The pond is drawn down in mid spring, to allow for productive plants to germinate. The pond usually floods back up one to two weeks before the season starts.

My cousin and I have had many conversations regarding managing this pond with regards to when to flood and drawdown, hunt spacing to ensure quality hunts and what species of plants to seed during the drawdown. The pond is never hunted two days in a row and usually has three to four days between hunts to allow the birds to accumulate. We try not to shoot out all of the ducks when we hunt the pond. If a few birds continue to use the honey hole, those birds will draw other birds in and create a better opportunity.

While we planned this hunt, we talked about how many days of rest the pond has had and about how many birds were using the pond. The pond had been hunted on the Tuesday after opening day, but had been left alone until this Sunday hunt. With four days for the ducks to forget the previous hunt, we settled into the blind 20 minutes before shooting time with great expectations. Still 10 minutes before shooting time we had 40 mallards swimming in the decoys, only to flush shortly after landing due to the high pitch whine coming from the dogs in the blind. Birds worked constantly until shooting time when we opened fire. We had 13 ducks on the water in the first ten minutes, all woodies and mallards. The morning hunt ended with 19 ducks in a little over an hour of hunting. As we left the blind with our limit of wood ducks and a few mallards, we looked over our shoulders at another half dozen wood ducks landing in the pond. I told my cousin to give it a couple days and they will be thick in there again. The birds that don’t get shot will be fat, happy and ready for migration feeding on the high-quality food planted in the pond.

What special place do you have to hunt that will produce a high quality hunt time and time again? What management decisions do you make to ensure good habitat conditions for when the fall migration starts?

The state of Michigan has multiple opening days each year. Sometimes we are lucky enough to have three opening days, but sometimes we have only two. This gives motivated hunters an opportunity to experience the best puddle duck hunting in Michigan over the course of multiple weekends. What better way to start the duck season than to hunt for two or three consecutive weekends and the birds are just as dumb each time you go out?

My uncle has a cabin in the heart of a national forest in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan (UP). The UP always has a different opening day than the southern lower peninsula, which is where I reside. A few years ago, my uncle invited some of us “trolls” up for the UP opener. Ecstatic, my cousin and I drove up on a Thursday, hunted grouse on Friday and then ducks for opening morning. This trip has become a tradition for my family and it has been permanently placed on our calendars for the foreseeable future. Not only do we enjoy the phenomenal duck hunting opening morning, but we experience unequalled grouse hunting with around 40 flushes per full day of hunting.

Our family motto is “The family that hunts together, stays together!” It would take a life changing event to prevent our family members from reconvening each fall to share the woods and the blind with our extended family. This year my mom, two uncles and one cousin all made the trip to the UP for the opener.

The weekend started with disappointment when we found out that the road that led to our 4 best grouse spots was closed by the forest service. We spent more time driving and less time hunting than normal on Friday, but still produced six grouse and two woodcock – which are better numbers than we traditionally have done. After a big dinner, we scouted for the evening flight of ducks and laid out the plan for the following morning.

Cousin Chris with a grouse he shot with a 28-ga. White Onyx Dinner Gun bought at a DU event.

We arrived at our spot and were setup with a few minutes to spare. Low hanging cloud cover provided minimal visibility. The ducks didn’t start flying until 15 minutes after shooting time. The next ten minutes were a flurry of activity that resulted in ten birds in the bag. By the time 10:00 am hit, we had 22 ducks in the bag for the five of us. My cousin and I each had limited out and the old people picked up the other ten birds. The morning hunt provided a mixed bag of greenwing teal, bluewing teal, wood ducks, mallards, black ducks, and wigeon. We called it a day and chased grouse and woodcock for the rest of the day.

We set up Sunday for the second day shoot and picked up four more mallards and a canada goose before packing it up to head back to the south for two more weeks of work before our zone opened up.

When I told my uncles that my wife and I are expecting our first baby in February, the response was simply: “make sure you learn the spots up here so you can bring your son when he gets old enough.” I simply smiled because I know that the opportunities provided by my relatives are because they are more proud of the success of the next generation than their own success. My mother and uncles are almost as excited as I am to see my son take his first bird 11 years from now when he can start hunting. It’s not about how many or how big your trophy is, it’s about enjoying natural renewable resources and passing on the family traditions that have kept your family strong through the tough times.

Thank you to my grandfathers, parents and uncles for passing on the tradition of hunting and teaching me the importance of family and the traditions that we hold.

There are some distinct aromas that can linger within our senses and bring us back to a special place in time like no other. Like Pavlov’s dog, our brain is triggered to recognize these smells and relate it directly to something, whatever that something might be. I was reminded of this not more than a week ago when I unpacked my bags from Saskatchewan. I unzipped the lower portion of my travel duffle to pull out my waders and was immediately overtaken by the memories of an unforgettable marsh hunt.
 
I can still pick up an old baseball glove and the smell of leather, sweat and brick dust brings back images of little league baseball. Yet, unlike the baseball glove, marsh mud can vary from region to region. Oh sure, we can break it down scientifically to determine what is the cause of such an odor, but I prefer my method of doing it from pure memory.

Every step or paddle pressed into marsh mud creates an aroma of leaking gases. Recently unpacking my bag from south Florida, I pulled out a pair of fishing shorts that reeked of saltwater marsh mud, but it wasn’t the mud that came to mind. It was the splash of water made by my Zara Spook as I tossed it under well-lit boat docks on the Intercoastal waterway. The mud smell brought back the darkness that surrounded my kayak as I anticipated the strike of 40-inch snook. It reminded of the mangroves and the fish that held tight under their finger-like outreaches, awaiting the arrival of baitfish with the incoming tide.

I’ve pulled out an old duck call lanyard and caught the aroma of Harsen’s Island in eastern Michigan, where the marsh mud seems to cling to the insides of your nostrils with every breath. Flocks of puddle ducks working the open marsh at day break, the skies filled with duck calls from callers and birds alike. The memory of a boat ride through the cattails and the work of trudging out to pick up decoys in the knee-deep muck; it all came back to me instantly from one whiff of marsh mud that clung to my lanyard.

Some complain at the stench of the marsh as it is stirred by those who frequent it. Others, like myself, tend to breathe it in deeply, knowing I will long for it sooner or later. The marsh mud holds stories of Maryland black duck hunters working through the marsh to find just the right spot at the right tide. The mud can tell stories of Illinois River waterfowlers fighting a driving snow for a few ducks or Texas Gulf Coast gunners in search of red heads in Laguna Madre. Every marsh mud has its own intricacies, except when examined by the layman; it all smells like marsh mud. To the outdoors fanatic, it’s memories.

I pulled my waders from my duffle bag and even though I was standing in my garage, the aroma brought me back to a wetland two hours east of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. I could hear the bull cans cutting air as they dropped from the sky. The echo of snow geese in the distance rang in my ears and the silhouettes of 1,000 sand hill cranes leaving their feeding area against a setting sun filled my mind. My wife brought me back to reality when she reminded how much my waders smelled.

“You have to hose those things off before you hang them up in here, they smell horrible,” she said.

“I know,” I said. I knew exactly what they smelled like, and I hung them up unwashed, hoping to be reminded of a setting sun somewhere in a marsh in Saskatchewan, every time I entered my garage.

Share your thoughts on the sights and sounds of waterfowling. What is that one smell, sight, or noise that brings your senses back to the marsh, field or blind?

Surveys show that about 1 in 5 waterfowl hunters keep track of their duck and goose hunting experiences. A friend of my dad’s, Frank “Bud” Meyers, used to keep a hunting journal and urged me to do so as well. That was in 1965, and I’ve kept a hunting log every year since.

The entries in my hunting journal have evolved over the years, perhaps as a reflection of maturity – although there are those who would argue! Regardless, the events notable enough to enter into my journal have changed significantly. Early on, the day’s recorded events were relatively cryptic and often included just the essential facts. For example, the entire entry for 8 October 1967 was:

…”took Larry along; a lot of geese flying. Got 8 blues and snows out of 3 bunches during the day.”

Two incomplete sentences were not at all sufficient to capture how special the day was. Yet, reading this short excerpt from the diary still prompts visual images of early snow goose hunting in North Iowa.

Now it takes a few pages rather than a couple of sentences to chronicle the day’s events! Who I hunt with and what they brought for us to eat has become at least as important as the ducks we shoot.

I still tally numbers of ducks shot and the times, how many decoys we put out – and when we moved them – and I keep track of when we were set up and when we picked up. These provide an interesting itemization of the aspects that can be quantified. Several thousand hours hunted and ten times that many decoys set over 40 plus years are measurable attributes of my duck hunts.

However, I’ve found that often it’s not what you can measure that is most important. A few years ago, we spent a slow morning in the duck boat trying to describe what makes for a memorable hunt. Although duck shooting certainly was part of the equation, most important criteria involved hunting partners, duck work, weather, food, the set, and expectations – both met and by surprise. An unexpected good day, with more birds than anticipated, better weather than predicted, and a hunting partner who was able to show up after all combine to make for a really memorable day on the marsh. Of course, there’s the other end of the spectrum as well – no ducks, fell in the marsh, dog fights, forgot coffee, motor quit, boat leaked, other hunters too close … Actually, the contrast and perspective provided by the unexpected extremes probably do most to define waterfowl hunting.

I’ve paid particular attention to the weather, and the most memorable duck days usually involved dramatic weather events. Among these are the “Halloween Storm” of 1991, the Midwest “hurricane” of 1998, and the most dramatic blue-winged teal migration I ever saw on 19 September 1983. Pioneering a spot in the flood waters, breaking a hole in the ice during late season, and temperatures dropping from the 60’s in the morning to freezing by sunset make other journal entries particularly notable.

Yet, it’s the people I’ve hunted with over the years that are the most important parts of my hunting record. Family and friends who also are infected with this waterfowl “bug,” have occupied the duck boats next to mine and also account for special notes in every journal entry. In recent years, as I’ve taken on a mentoring as opposed to apprentice role, opportunities to see a duck hunter evolution in my grandchildren have become a predominant part of the record. I suspect that a few decades from now, the written legacy of my hunting experience might become fairly important to them. Hopefully, they’ll have a record of their own as well.