Duckless Hunting

Duck hunting in our part of the country has to be done for the pure joy of being out in nature, often when the temperature and humidity is not at a comfortable level. Usually it is down right miserable. In the fall of 2008 I have been on four or five expeditions into the "wilds" and so far all the ducks are safe and the shotgun is still clean. Hunting ducks and or geese usually involves hauling a whole truck load of stuff to the swamp/marsh/lake/field about two hours before sun up. Decoys in large bags, usually three to five bags, with three to four dozen decoys, a couple of shotguns, shotgun shells, a boat, ores, seats, life jackets, wadders dry clothes, extra jackets, gloves, duck calls, snacks, and of course coffee are all loaded up and eventually distributed in some natural looking way that would not frighten ducks. Hiding from the ducks is important enough that you get to buy lots of clothing that is supposed to make you blend in to the surrounding vegetation. Of course that doesn't really work out that well most of the time.
Then there is the vigilance, making sure those ducks don't sneek up on you.

Finally there is always the reason for why you need the extra dry clothes. Note that our friend Ryan is sitting on the end of his sunken canoe wringing water out of his socks after righting his canoe and before he has bailed the water out. The canoe is the thing in front of him holding up the shot gun that has about four inches of freeboard. Ryan's trusty canine Brody is sitting on a muskrat hutch complaining about being wet too. Oh, for the pure joy of it all.