Thoughts from a Duck Hunter

Today I have my first-ever guest blogger -- husband Don....

I went duck hunting on Monday, October 14, 2013, the opening day in western M*ssachusetts.  I wasn’t really planning on duck hunting in my new home state.  After all, western M*ssachusetts is not exactly a waterfowl hotspot due to distance from the coast, the heavily wooded topography, and a general lack of sizeable marshes. 

But since moving here last December I had noticed on the atlas a state wildlife management area or WMA about six miles from home that seemed promising, or at least wet.  So I finally got around to scouting the area on foot a few days before the opener. 

The WMA totals 429 acres and its center piece is a 40-acre or so beaver-made impoundment on Dead Branch Creek.  The creek marsh is flanked by hills of eastern hemlock, white pine, and mixed northern hardwoods.   The water was deep enough to float a canoe and there was enough vegetation near open water for hiding canoe and hunter.  I saw a few wood ducks and hooded mergansers and heard some Canada geese.  The scouting trip awakened my duck hunting bug and I decided I might as well give it a try. 

I first hunted ducks when I was 15.  Back then it was a matter of a parent dropping me and a friend off in the pre-dawn darkness, tromping around the marshy end of a shallow lake all day with only a shotgun and lunch, and being picked up after sunset with perhaps a duck, merganser, or coot.  After so many years of duck hunting, my passion for the sport seems a permanent condition that comes to life as days shorten and colors change.  I just have to be out there.

Of course my equipment was not ready-to-go.  The biggest challenge was rigging a way to carry the canoe on the Subaru since four-wheel-drive was a must on the steep and rocky half-mile long access road to the water.  I had been using the 1996 V*lkswagen GTI for canoe outings the past few years since it had a more-or-less permanent roof rack from Lauri’s kayaking days, so I never got around to buying racks for the S*baru.  But some two-by-fours lashed to the roof rails of the Subaru worked for this short-distance outing (a custom roof rack is now on order).

I used the same Gr*mman canoe I bought new as a senior in high school with cash saved from a part-time job at what used to be known as a mom and pop grocery store.  At 75 cents an hour it took a long time to save the $250 needed.  I can still flip the canoe up and onto my shoulders and then up on the car rack, but it certainly is much harder, and less smooth, than it used to be.  The canoe seems to be weathering the aging process a bit better than me.  I have too many moving parts, a canoe has none. 

The canoe has been such a good and reliable partner on so many hunts.  The craft’s cold aluminum is in sharp contrast to the warmth and fondness I feel toward it.  A friend of mine who is also a canoe enthusiast says in understated sarcasm that aluminum canoes are great for storage.  Thank goodness since this one is always ready no matter how long it has been ignored.

I arrived at the WMA in the dark at 5:45 a.m. and was the only one there.  I wasn’t sure if that was a blessing or a sign of duckless skies to come.  It turned out to be a mix of both.  One other party of two in a canoe did arrive after I was set-up and they paddled silently past to the north end of the marsh.

In the end, I bagged no birds during the morning hunt, not that I didn’t have chances.  At sunrise I decided the decoys were not set-up right so while out making adjustments a flock of six Canada geese flew right over my gun-less self.  Later I shot at one of three wood ducks zigzagging over the decoys but missed it cleanly.  A few other wood ducks were seen, a few more geese, and a lone ring-necked duck zoomed overhead but out of my range of confidence.  I seem to watch ducks over decoys more than shoot ducks over decoys.
 

But it was a memorable morning none-the-less thanks to the marsh magic that duck hunters know and love.

A beaver startled the heck out of me as I pushed out from shore in the dark, slapping its tail a couple of times to voice its alarm over the intrusion.  After sunrise a pair of river otters came cruising through just outside the decoys.  They reared-up out of the water to get a better look at the oversized and lifeless plastic birds, snorted a few times and moved on, only to return an hour later for another look.  About twenty crows mobbed an owl or something in the forest, a kingfisher fished, a long-billed marsh wren worked around my “blind,” and a female hooded merganser swam through the decoys.  The morning sun cleared a light fog and lit up a breath-taking fall panorama. 

And so for the 46^th year I was again immersed in the sights, sounds, and smells of the marsh at dawn.  I felt grateful, at peace, and home again so far from home.