A hunter is born

Karen went hunting with me for the first time the first year we were married. I shot three squirrels on that particular stalk through the Hoosier National Forest. Karen had a good time on the trip and enjoyed being with me doing something I love, but as I recall, she wasn't much interested in learning to do it herself. In more recent years, we have talked about getting her out in the woods "when the kids are older." Well that day has arrived. Our kids are now old enough to be able to stay home by themselves for a few hours without a babysitter while the dear wife and I slip out for coffee, or a walk, or a hunting trip nearby. Last fall it got serious. Karen bought a deer tag and sat in a treestand. The deer didn't cooperate for either of us during gun season, but she conquered the most difficult challenge of it, which is getting in the stand, 20 feet up, and sitting there with enough focus to be able to shoot if a deer appears in range. We drew turkey tags this past spring but despite early excitement on the one morning we got to go, no toms came close.

Squirrel season opened on August 1st and Karen asked if we go for the opener. I took time off work and away we went. The woods near home where I like to go was still, buggy, and sweaty, but the result was this:

Those are the faces of happy hunters, smiling despite a collection of mosquito bites on our hands and heads that made us later look like Looney Tunes characters after they get hit by a mallet (despite generous application of bug spray beforehand!). She is smiling with accomplishment and joy. I am smiling because a dream I have held close since I was first married is now fulfilled. My bride has become a huntress!

Hog Wild

I turned 40 this past August and my dear bride Karen decided to soften the blow of my entry into middle age by sending me on a wild hog hunt with Cabela's Outdoor Adventures, further cementing her status as World Champion Wife. Since I didn't think it would be nearly as much fun to go alone, and I relish every bit of time I get to spend with him, I invited my brother Steven to go with me and he was only too happy to go.

With that in place, the planning and anticipation stage of the trip began. Steven starting researching rifles, and I started blowing the dust out of my .30-06 with 150 grain Winchester Power Points. I had bought my Model 70 back in 1999, when Karen and I were still living in Texas and I had fantasies of going hog hunting down there. Somehow, four children and two pastorates later and I had never fired it at anything other than targets. It was time to fix that. Six months and a lot of dreaming, packing, and shooting later, we were ready to go. Steven found a great deal on a (very gently) used Kimber .270 and another one on a Meopta scope. He also got the directions to the ranch. We left first thing on Monday, March 31st, with plans to be at the ranch by dark.

Well, we didn't make dark. That is, we didn't make it to the ranch we would be hunting at dark. A mix-up with the outfitter meant we were at the other ranch owned by the same outfitter, conveniently located some 2 hours west of where we needed to be. Oh well, it's only another 2 hours down the road on top of our 12 hour drive, right? We rolled in quite late, but we were greeted by the guides, dinner, profuse apologies (and later, a check for the extra mileage).

We unpacked and rolled out of bed the next morning at 5:45 to meet the guides at 6:15 and go hunting. It was a beautiful hunt, with deer and turkeys wandering around keeping us occupied. Steven didn't get any action on hogs, but about 9:30 I had a herd of pigs come trotting through, but did not stick around waiting on me to pick out a boar. At 10:30, my guide showed up in the truck, which flushed the herd back out into some open woods 200 yards away. I rested the rifle, and a hog dropped at the shot. Later that night, we found another one in the same area--the one I actually intended to shoot. When I shot, the bullet passed through the chest of hog #1 and landed in the cranium of hog #2 (which is why she dropped immediately). The night hunt wasn't productive for either Steven or I. We both missed nice boars at last light. Mine was another 200 yard shot, and apparently lightning doesn't strike twice in the same day. Steven's was about 1/2 that distance, but he didn't discover until the next day that his rifle was shooting 6" low of point of aim, hence his bullets were sailing under the hogs and hitting the dirt.

My "bonus" pig

The pig I intended to shoot, but didn't locate till evening

Steven with his sow.

The next day, Steven got his scope adjusted and then headed to his stand. On arrival at the stand, two sows took off running. I should mention that when pigs run, they are experts at flat out getting gone. But Steven threw the rifle up and dropped one with a spine shot at 110 yards. Redemption! Honor restored! My stands, meanwhile, weren't productive at all on the second day.

I shot another big sow at dusk on the last evening, this time with Steven's slug gun at about 35 yards. Boom! A quick twitch, then the lights went out for good. I had another opportunity at a boar about an hour later, but had to move to get into position and spooked him.

Last night pig

View from the Lodge-Eastern Oklahoma in spring is beautiful!

All in all, it was an amazing, fun hunt and one I would readily do again. Definitely among the best birthday presents I ever received, and a great memory made with my brother. The ranch is both huge and beautiful. The "little" ranch we hunted was "only" about 13,000 acres, while the one we landed at initially is over 28,000. I'd never seen spring in the eastern Oklahoma cattle country before, but it is beautiful. The guides were nice guys and worked hard for us. The cook made great food. And in case you're wondering, wild pig is delicious!

Success at long last

I took up archery hunting  about four years back, mostly as a good excuse to hang out with my dad. We love to be together, and hunting has always been our way of hanging out. (Which reminds me that it's been a year or so since we have hunted together. Time to rectify that).

Anyway, I had been an archer of sorts when I was a kid, but I hadn't ever gotten around to getting a real bow when I became a man. Old reflexes quickly come back, and new bows are easier to shoot with than ever, but I hadn't actually ever gotten to full draw and shot at anything other than targets. For. four. long. years. This was the result despite having places to go and going regularly. There just never seem to be an opportunity when it all came together: seeing a deer, having it in range, and being able to get drawn and make the shot.

Well, all that changed this past Tuesday. It was about 8:45 a.m. and the woods had been quiet except for a coon ambling through at about 6:30, which I had been sorely tempted to shoot. It was not warm, and I was consequently starting to think about all the work awaiting me at the office and why I was, once again, sitting in an empty woods when I could have been getting something productive done. (It's nice to be in the woods, but if you're not seeing anything, it becomes harder to justify doing that when the mercury dips). So I decided I would stay in my stand another 15 minutes, then get down, swap out the disk in my trail camera, and head to work. About five minutes later, I see a grey blur down in the creek bottom. It's too big and the wrong color for a squirrel, but I can't see the whole animal. A minute later there's more movement, and I see a doe, and chasing her, a small buck.

My luck is changing, at least potentially. The doe runs up the hill toward the thicket where my stand is located, followed shortly by the buck. He loses her in the thicket, and for a while, I am catching glimpses of a deer behind me, though I cannot tell which one. A few minutes go by and the buck appears at the big scrape to my right. He is through the brush, and I have no clear shot, but while he is leaving his mark at the scrape, I stand slowly and prepare to shoot him. He hears the movement, and is on edge, but he can neither smell me nor see me move, so he simply stomps stiff legged and begins moving toward me. At 10 yards, he stops behind a small tree. His head is obscured, along with the rest of his body, but I can see his neck and front shoulder, so I get to full draw. After a long wait, he is still standing, unmoved from the spot. My injured left shoulder (long story for another time), is screaming at me to release the arrow. My brain is saying, "Wait. Wait for the lung shot. Aim small. Miss small." Eventually, the shoulder starts winning and tells the brain: "Neck is vital you idiot. SHOOT!" The arrow flies and buries itself nearly to the fletching at the base of the buck's neck. He runs and I see the crash as the laurels shake and the end comes. I wait the requisite 1/2 hour, using the time to text my hunting partner and my dear bride ("We've got meat for the winter, honey!"). We find the deer after a short track through the thicket, piled up near a log and looking for all the world like a trophy.

 I haven't been this excited as a hunter since the first time I got a deer, out with my dad, some 25 years ago now. He's not the biggest one I've ever gotten, but he represents the end of a long road and for that, I find myself both excited and thankful.

Wild pheasants and good friends

Last Saturday, I got the rare opportunity to hunt wild pheasants at one of the state pheasant production areas. On opening day, no less. It's 100 acres of the most beautiful pheasant habitat imaginable. There are standing milo and corn crops interspersed with thick grass and mowed strips intersecting it all to make it easier to control and push. We moved a total of 12 birds that morning, including 6 hens. And here I thought the odds of finding wild birds in Illinois were about the same as finding a wild, free-range T-rex. But no, it turns out that the birds just need a place suited for them to thrive, just like the guys at Pheasants Forever keep preaching. We managed to get two roosters total in the bag, and mine was served at the hunter's brunch at my house on Tuesday morning. It had been a long time, and fried pheasant had never tasted quite so good!

Here's Marty Davis and me, at the end of a long morning's walk:

A hunting we will go...

So my eldest and I went hunting for the first time this past Sunday. I had been waiting for the complete end of deer season so that I would not spoil my hunting partner's chances at a last-minute deer. Also, I didn't think there was any great hurry since the place seems to have a squirrel in virtually every other tree during deer season.

Alas, such was not the case the day we went. I think it may have had something to do with the fact that we went out mid-afternoon rather than either at sunrise (my preferred time) or sunset (which can also be good). I was hopeful that Sara's first squirrel would fall, but we actually did. not. see. a. single. one. Which was kind of sad and disappointing. I consoled her with the thought that "sometimes you get 'em and sometimes you talk your shotgun for a walk." Which is what we wound up doing. I think I can talk her into going with again, but we should definitely go in the morning next time. Still, I think if nothing else, she and I got time alone to just talk and be together (a rare thing in a house with three siblings), and we got to be in the woods together (and collect my trail camera, by which this photo-among others-was taken).

Scenes from a deer stand

My dear wife Karen loves me deeply and so she encourages me in my passion for hunting. For Christmas, she gave me a Wildlife Innovations trail camera, which I promptly installed at a large scrape about 10 yards from my favorite tree stand. Here's a few of my favorite pics I've gotten so far:

Deer season

Deer season ended not with a whimper, or even a bang, but by simply ending. Tag sandwiches don't taste very good, and this is the first time I've eaten one in a while. Still, in a thought familiar to Cub fans everywhere, "There's always next year!"

Whitetails on the table

...So that buck I wrote about? Well, my hunting buddy had it walk by his stand at 15 yards and that was all she wrote. It was a mainframe 8-pointer with an abnormal sticker point on one side that scored 124 7/8". A nice buck, but not a monster. My friend and I split the meat on whatever we shoot, so yesterday afternoon I helped him skin and quarter it. The hams and chops from my half are all currently sitting in my freezer, neatly carved into roasts and steaks, while the remaining 15 lbs of de-boned meat is in bags in the fridge awaiting the grinder. Perhaps tonight I'll get around to that. If not, then tomorrow morning.

Meanwhile, I am also getting ready to boil the skull for my friend for a European mount. I hope it turns out well. It's a cool looking set of antlers and should make for a good mount. Pictures to follow when I'm done.

This weekend is also the start of shotgun season. Which means deer that were heretofore too far away are now in range...

Whitetails in the mist

I went hunting on Monday morning, out to the camp where I have the privilege of serving as a board member. It was a crisp, cool morning, but not yet cold. The pre-rut was on, a front had just come through, and if the two does I spotted crossing the road on the way in were a sign, it promised to be an ideal morning for a bowhunter still in search of his first  bow kill. I was hoping that the big 12 pointer that has been haunting the alfalfa field at the north end would want to fight with my decoy and I'd get a shot or at least an encounter.

Instead, after I got everything set and was pulling the bow into the treestand with me, I discovered that my arrows had disappeared from my quiver somewhere between the truck and the tree. With no arrows, this was proving not to be much of a hunt. So I slipped out of the stand and walked back to the truck, flashlight in hand. I did not see them on the way back, so I waited at the truck for daylight, frustrated.

After it got light, I walked down, packed up the decoy and gathered my kit, it now becoming obvious I was in for a different kind of hunt-to find about $100 of arrows. I did finally find them, on the way back up the hill. Apparently, they had caught on some of the thorn tangle I had to plow through on the way down in the dark and popped out to the ground.

But by this time, it was 7:30 and the first magic hour-and-a-half was gone, and the spot I was hoping to hunt was probably scented up by all my tromping around. So, if I was going to actually hunt deer at all, it was going to be out of another stand.

When I arrived at another stand, overlooking a hot scrape which is easily 4' in diameter near some big rubs, I settled in comfortably and prepared to call and wait and call and wait. And it started to rain. Not hard, just a good steady sprinkle that soaks you a little at a time.

I toughed it out for two hours of no deer sightings and then decided I'd had enough fun for one day. I got down and slid through the sodden woods toward another stand to see what deer sign might be active near it (I haven't hunted it yet this year). As I got close, I spotted three deer--two does and a nice buck, who were all ambling downhill toward me at about 80-90 yards. Too far for this archer, but they might close the deal on their own. At least, that was my hope.

It was not to be. I watched for 5 minutes, silently and without moving. I had the wind and the deer weren't aware I was there. But then, the wind carried the scent of another predator to the deer and, in a jumble of white and grey-brown, they were gone, over the hill and out of my life. The coyote appeared, moments later, dogging their track.

Tomorrow is another day for me and the woods and the bow. Perhaps God's grace will prevail and I will get meat for the freezer and the family. Perhaps not. But either way, any coyotes in the area best be alert for airborne special deliveries.

Dad's lessons about hunting...and life: #3

Let the creation point you to the Creator...

I am convinced that God loves hunters and fishermen. After all, God put the universe’s two biggest bears and its biggest fish in the northern sky for all of us to see. (How's that for a trophy room?) And who but God would put the star that points us north in the constellation of the Bear, so that we who love His creation would find that He is the True North to which the stars point?

I don’t think these things are accidental. And I think most hunters and fishermen I know also know that. They know when they are outdoors, God is speaking to them through his creation. I remember years ago, when I was hunting at the Baptist campground where I shot one of the bucks that hangs on my church office wall. It was one of those perfect November mornings when everything is crisp and still. I was back home in Indiana, having flown up from Texas for Thanksgiving and the annual family deer hunt. The sun came up out of the east, and as rays of sunlight filtered through the trees, the woods started coming to life. A red-tailed hawk screamed overhead, squirrels were rustling in the leaves, and setting my heart racing as my mind thought “Was that a deer or a squirrel?” After a while a great blue heron swooped in and started fishing in the creek below my stand, totally oblivious to my presence. The fact that I got a deer later that day was just a bonus.

And I’m convinced that God has given us these sorts of experiences to remind us that He is seeking us. Those of you who know the stars know that God also put Orion, the Hunter, in the sky. And I think God put Orion there to remind us that like us, God is a hunter, and we are the quarry He is seeking. And He needs to seek us out, because the most fundamental truth about every human being in all the world is this: None of us are straight shooters, and so we all wound and break things we can't make right. Oh you might be a AA trap shooter, and qualify for the Olympic biathalon team, and be able to shoot prairie dogs at 1200 yards all day long with your .220 Laser Zapper, but from God’s perspective, you aren’t a straight shooter. At least not morally and spiritually speaking. In fact the Bible says this in Romans 3:23: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” To "fall short”is a term from archery that refers to not just missing the target, but deliberately shooting the wrong one on purpose. In other words, our sins aren’t just embarrassing or shameful, they are also all forms of deliberate rebellion against the God who made us.

Moreover, according to the Bible, when we sin we separate ourselves from God, and that brings death: “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). And boy, do we get paid. Death comes into every one of lives every time we sin. So we sin against our wives and kill our marriages, against our children and kill our families, against our buddies and kill our friendships, and against God and kill ourselves on the inside. Sin is the ultimate reason why the world is the way it is and why our bodies die. It’s also the reason why some people choose to live in rebellion against God their entire lives and to spend eternity separated from Him in Hell.

This is the reason why Dad taught me that the creation should lead us back to the Creator, for God is not only the Hunter who seeks us out; He is also the God who hung the Southern Cross in the sky so that we could follow the blood trail He has left all the way back to Him. If you ever get to the game fields of Africa, you can’t miss the Southern Cross in those skies. And as each person lives out his life on this planet, God intends for him not to miss the Cross of Calvary, because sin is a capital crime of treason against God and its penalty is death.

Yet the God who made all things (even the stars) point to Him, does so because He loves us and does not want us to die carrying the load of our sin all the way to death and hell. Through the Cross, God provides a substitute who bore our penalty and offers us new life. If you hunt every day of the season all the days of your life; if you claim all the best trophies from all the world’s game species; if you become the most renowned hunter in all the world and yet die without finding a relationship with the Creator to whom all the creation points through faith in Jesus Christ, your life will end as a tragedy, for you will have missed the most important quarry: an eternal loving relationship with God as your Father.

Dad's lessons about hunting...and life: #2

Most hunters I know strive to always shoot straight, and Dad was (and is) no exception. He valued good shooting and good shots, and if you missed an easy one, you knew you were in for some ribbing about it, probably both then and later, because the goal of a good hunter is always a clean kill. Partly, that’s because it is the kill that distinguishes hunting from simply taking a walk outside, and partly because if you don’t shoot straight, you’re unlikely to have much to bring home. And there were years, particularly when I was very young, when the rabbits, squirrels, and deer that Dad shot were the difference between meat on the table and not. The experiences of those years shaped my dad, and he shaped me in turn. So we practiced, and practiced, and then we went hunting, rejoicing in the good shots and kidding each other about the bad ones.

But we all know that sometimes, you don’t miss cleanly nor do you kill cleanly. Sometimes you "wing" that rooster, or duck, or deer. Well then, you need to do your best to track that animal, find it, and finish the job. All other hunting stops until that animal is recovered or you’ve exhausted your ability to search and still can’t bring the animal to hand. So I learned from Dad how to blood trail a deer, and how to train a dog to search for and retrieve pheasants & quail that were only "winged."

I’ve discovered that this principle holds in other areas too. Every man should be a straight shooter, a person with integrity, honesty, and a sense of personal honor. We shouldn’t seek to tilt the table to run our direction, but play fairly and treat others with the sort of gentleness we expect from them. And sometimes, just like when we’re afield, we wound and break things. We wound people and we break relationships when we failed in our commitment to be a straight shooter (as sinners, all of us fail, at least at times). And just like when we’re afield, we have to follow-up and, as much as possible, make it right. Only this time, instead of seeking to finish it off, we ought to be seeking to heal it and bring it back to life.

Dad's lessons about hunting...and life: #1

I learned to hunt from my Dad, by walking quite literally in his footsteps and doing what he did, because even back then, I knew that he was (and is) a great hunter, and when I grew up, I wanted to be just like him.

Dad read Outdoor Life, and learned about hunting from Jim Zumbo, about shooting from Jim Carmichel, and how to laugh at all the silly stuff we outdoorsmen do with Patrick McManus. So as soon I could read, I raided Dad’s stash of back issues of Outdoor Life, and learned and laughed right along with him. In fact, every now and then, one of us will quote a line from a McManus' story about building muzzleloaders from scratch (the one called "Poof! No Eyebrows), which we've we’ve both read more times than we can count, and we’ll laugh all over again.

When I was 8, dad taught me to shoot with a lever-action Daisy BB gun. That fall and several afterward, he took me squirrel hunting every weekend when the weather was decent and the season was in. I learned to move through the woods quietly by walking behind him, and to hunt safely with that BB gun before I was allowed to move up to his Winchester 42 .410 pump.

When I was around 10, Dad finally bowed to the reality that Indiana’s habitat had changed. What used to be grass fields full of rabbits had grown up into timber, the coyotes were coming on strong, and there just weren’t as many rabbits as there used to be. So the beagles all got sold, and he bought his first bird dogs, a German wirehair named Gretel and then later, an English pointer. Over the years, there’s also been a succession of Brittanies and more setters than I can count. I happily took up my role as bird boy and assistant dog trainer and followed Dad around the state doing training, and watching from the gallery at Shoot-to-Retrieve trials. I learned a lot about dog training and fell in love with bird hunting and bird dogs as I walked in Dad’s footsteps.
When I hit high school, I actually got to go on my first ever wild pheasant hunt, out in Creston, Iowa. That was back in the first years of the CRP program, and the birds were thick everywhere out there. In my memory, we all shot limits every day, but that may not have been reality. Also around that time, Dad helped me to shoot the first buck I ever killed with decent antlers, a weird non-typical that was standing in the middle of Big Walnut Creek. And when that deer went down in the creek, it was Dad who went swimming in that icy November water to retrieve him.

Dad still loves to hunt and I still love to hunt with him. When our relationship was rocky (as it was sometimes), we could always go hunting together, and so I treasure hunting partly for that reason. And I still walk in his footsteps in many ways.

I often think back to those early days in the woods, when we would wander around together hunting. I often had literally no idea where we were, yet somehow we always wound up back at the truck. I have realized over the years how much my life owes to him, because no matter how my life wandered, he was always there, pointing me the way back to the Lord. I don't think I would be a Christian, never mind a Christian pastor, were it not for my dad's example of faithful Christian manhood and leadership, nor do I think I would a good husband and father if not for his modeling it for me.

Thanks, Dad. You have always led me Home.

Deer season

I got this photo on my phone this morning. It's my old hunting buddy, William "Bucky" Buchanan next to his prizes. His text told me he also got another buck, which isn't pictured.

This photo brought back a lot of memories of long days afield, typically freezing our tails off in the Iowa snow, waiting and hoping for one of those legendary Iowa deer to walk by in range. I shot the biggest deer of my life during the last deer season I lived there, but it could have been Bucky's. That morning, he decided to hunt nearer to the truck while I made the long hike through the snow toward the back fence and walked up on a herd of does and one giant buck. Since then, he's well up on me, shooting several nice deer the last two years.

I also remember a lot of nights in my Iowa kitchen (with its pink countertop and orange flooring!) cutting meat and packing it to the freezer together. We got a lot of deer some years, not much in others, but always there was a lot of fun.

Congratulations, old friend.

REAL MAN trap shooting

My competitive trap shooting career was short-lived and not much to write home about. I think my highest score in two years of being on the Faith Bible Church Club team was a 19/25. I was not a AA shooter, to say the least. However, I do think that I have found a version of trap shooting at which I could excel. Be sure to watch the whole thing, and while you're watching, ask yourself, "What have they got that launches those cars?"

I've got to have one of these!

I have long coveted an AR-15 style rifle. Those of you who don't hunt or shoot may not understand such things, but there's something about a semi-automatic rifle for which I can buy a 30-round clip and which is also light-recoiling, accurate, and cheap to shoot. There is also, of course, the high degree of similarity to the US Military's M-16, which deeply appeals to the part of me that loved to play GI Joe and cowboys and Indians as a kid. I justify this desire by telling myself that it would a fantastic coyote and fox shooting rifle (which is true), but I'm not much of a predator hunter now, so I suspect that my real reason has more to do with the magnificent coolness factor than anything else. What has mostly prevented me from buying one is the fact that doing so requires about 1000 of my hard-earned dollars, and given two kids going to orthodontist (with more to come), a car payment, a house payment, and giving to church and missionaries, we're just not at the stage of life when that is in the realm of possibility.

Well along comes Ruger Firearms with something nearly as cool, but at less than 1/2 the price. This is the new SR-22, a semi-automatic rifle in .22 Long Rifle. Ten round magazines come standard, but aftermarket 30 rounders are available. Shells are much cheaper (about 20 bucks for a box of 500 vs. 25 bucks for a box of 40), and so you can shoot a long time without blowing throw a major wad of cash. The stock is fully adjustable for length of pull, and the Picatinny rail allows for a wide range of optical and iron sights. It's not much good for coyotes (unless they're close), but I can console myself by shooting a lot of tasty bunnies and squirrels instead. Maybe this will be the year a dream gets fulfilled.

Post-Deer Season Wrap-up

Well, it's official: The shotgun deer season ended and I got a fat goose egg. I saw a lot of deer (though most were way out of range) and missed the one good shot opportunity I had on the last day. But this is no time for self-pity. I still got to enjoy being in the woods and seeing the sun come up through the trees. I got to watch foxes and coyotes on the hunt, owls ghosting through the trees, squirrels busily burying nuts for the winter, and wild turkeys fly up to roost at night and down in the morning, yelping all the way. I got to do all of this despite thinking that I might not even have a place to go this year, so the fact that I got to hunt at all was a blessing in itself.

On top of that, I got news from Iowa on Saturday that my old friend and former deer slaying partner has finally shot his first antlered buck. He had already shot a doe that morning and had his gun jam when it was time to shoot at a buck a little later. So he was very excited to get another opportunity to shoot this buck that evening. Congrats, old friend, on a very nice deer!

New friends

I made some new friends today as I went duck hunting on the Illinois River. Tom and Tony showed me the ropes of the Illinois public duck blind system and got us into a great blind. Not many ducks flying today, the bottom of the blind was filled with 2" of slick river muck, and it rained like crazy for 1/2 the hunt. We shot two ducks and I'm going to have to wash a lot of mud off of my gear. But what fun! Tom and Tony are great guys and fine hunters, and Tony's dog Camo is 75 lbs. of pure retrieving energy. Now if only I could figure out how to cook a bufflehead so that it tastes good...

Home is the hunter...

Sorry for lack of posts since last week. The mighty hunter has returned, obviously, with... wait for it...1/2 a duck! How exactly does a person shoot 1/2 a duck you ask? Well, it's like this: All together, the four of us shot four ducks-a hen shoveler, a drake bluebill, and two drake mallards. Two of the ducks were shot by Gerry Lancaster (they were on his end of the boat), while one was shot by Gerry's brother Jack (on his end of the boat). My friend Steve and I were fighting it out in the middle. I shot the one mallard I had a chance to shoot, though Gerry also shot, so we both claimed 1/2 of it. In the end, I wound up taking all of the ducks home, where they are now resting comfortably in my freezer, awaiting the day of duck a la orange, which is yet to come this winter.

It was not the most stellar day from a duck shooting perspective that I've ever experienced on the marsh. On the other hand, between the raindrops, I got to witness the morning flight, saw some ducks work to the call, watched sandhill cranes and geese flap by at a distance, ate grilled and buttered cinammon raisin bagels, followed by ham and eggs, and sucked down coffee with good men. We talked, we razzed each other, we stood in the rain and the wind and watched for circling birds coming to the call and the decoys. And it's these things, as much as the actual shooting, that make for a good duck hunt. And it's for them, as much as the other, that I love going and am looking forward to the next time.

Ducks, marshes, and old friends

I'm going to Iowa on Thursday night so that I can experience the joy of sitting in a camouflaged boat out on the marsh while the sun comes up with some old friends and waiting for the ducks. In the last few minutes before the dawn, we'll all be silently praying that shooting hours and duck flight closely coincide. I'll be hoping for teal screaming by, crusing low over the dekes, mallards coming in with their orange feet up, and maybe a shoveler or a gadwall just to liven things up.

Of course, it's also possible that no ducks fly near or at all. That the marsh is quiet except for the sounds of eggs and bacon frying, coffee pouring out of thermoses and into cups held by cold fingers, and of friendly voices razzing each other about one thing or another. And that too is a good way to spend a morning. Since I haven't done either one in a couple years, I don't much care.

Bowhunting with Dad

I went bowhunting with my dad on Monday after spending Sunday afternoon hanging stands in a couple likely locations. We didn't see a deer, but I still had a good time. Time with Dad, especially time to be together in the outdoors, has become much rarer now that I am a father myself with a variety of responsibilities. So it was great just to be together, eat bacon cheeseburgers at ratty restaurant in Henry, and watch the sunrise over the mist in the fields and forests of central Illinois. I'm hoping for a deer this season. It would be great to connect with my bow. But even if not, I'm hoping for more days with Dad.