The Duck Hunt

The Duck Hunt

Flat on my ass. Yup that was me at about 6:45 in the morning, in the middle of a pond, waist deep in stagnant slew water. Absolutely disgusting slew water that reeks of rotting vegetation and duck crap. Not even habitable for fish, just a few water spiders and mosquitos that bite the crap out of you by the way.

Since I was a little kid I have loved to go trap shooting with my friends and family. I joined a trap shooting group and learned proper safety; technique and event went on a youth pheasant hunt for experience and practice. I LOVED it! I also gained a real interest in trying duck hunting because of the fun stories that my friends and family had told me. So, naturally I really wanted to try it out. For about three years I had begged and begged for someone to take my duck hunting. But because I am a girl I got the typical, “you’ll be too cold”  “you’ll have to go pee and there’s no toilet”  “it’s too early in the morning and you won’t want to wake up” “you won’t want to shoot the ducks because you’ll think they’re cute” and my personal favorite, “girls can’t shoot.” Every time I was told one of those famous quotes my reply was always, “I wanted to go duck hunting, I’m not a wimp, I’m not a typical girl, someone just give me a chance and take me duck hunting! Despite my continuous begging I was never taken.

 In October of 2011 I met my boyfriend. A cute country boy who had a nice truck, loved raising livestock (like me) and also loved to go hunting and fishing. I scored big time! And not soon after I realized that, yes, there’s finally someone who will take me duck hunting.

Duck season started not long after we began dating and of course all of “the guys” were calling him and inviting him to go duck hunting… while I sat at home. This killed me, every time he went hunting with a friend I got so jealous and was on the verge of a mental break down. I’d sit there as he packed up all of his stuff, waders, shotgun, shells, decoys, duck calls, hunting jacket and with every item he put in his truck my desire to go hunting grew stronger and stronger. Of course he’d go out and get a bunch of ducks to bring back and show me and well, you can guess what that did to me.

Duck season came and went that year and after much nagging he promised me that he would take me next season.  For Christmas that year my boyfriend bought me an amazing hunting jacket so that next year, a good pair of waders (essentially waterproof overalls usually with rubber boots attached) would be all I needed to buy. I was also surprised by my dad who bought be a brand new, camouflage Benelli Nova shotgun for Christmas.

The next season was here and I was ready to go. A friend of my boyfriend’s family had loaned me a pair of waders and his dad let me borrow a pair of lace up army boots to wear since the pair of waders I was borrowing didn’t come with boots attached. The waders were a size too big, the boots too tight and I didn’t say a word about it because I just wanted to go hunting.

My boyfriend and I purchased our hunting licenses, day passes and shotgun shells and we were off to Grizzly Island Refuge at about 11:30 PM. You see, because we didn’t have a reserved spot on the refuge, we had to get day passes and head out the night before to get a spot in line. A line formally known as “The swat line,” the line gets its name because whoevers in it is sweating it to hopefully get on the refuge after the people who have a reservation get on. If you’re in the sweat line you get the leftover spots on the refuge so you want to be in the front to have a better chance of getting to go hunting, therefore we left the night before.

We arrive at about 12:15 AM, let our parents know were alive and we’re second in line in my boyfriend’s tiny little single cab, Ford Ranger. 4:30 AM is when the Department of Fish and Game station opened and the wardens start letting people on the refuge so we tried to get comfortable enough to sleep until we had to get up at 4:30. Attempting to sleep in the truck was impossible. You can’t even stretch your legs out. At the most we got a 45 minute cat nap,  the other time was spent kicking each other, flipping over, whacking the other person in the face, leaning with your cheek pressed up against a freezing cold window, banging your knee on the dash and not sleeping at all, what so ever.

4:30 came and we were wide awake. We snacked on doughnuts and other junk food that we brought and cracked the windows in hopes of defrosting them. That didn’t work well because within a few minutes we were being attacked by mosquitos. The game warden arrived at the station and my boyfriend started coaching me on what to do, “Have your license ready, fill out your pass, grab a map, and get in and out because we’re flying out to get a good spot before they’re all taken.” Alight, I’m ready let’s do this!

We get to the parking area by the pond that my boyfriend wanted to take me to; we park and get out of the truck. Next on the to-do list is to get dressed. I need to put on my thermals, waders, sweatshirt, jacket, face mask, gloves and open up my hand warmers. I was prepared and I didn’t want to get cold and prove that everyone else was right when they said it would be too cold for me. Other people were at that parking lot getting ready to go out into the pond so we were all racing each other to get out there. It was intense! By that time I was so excited that the thought never crossed my mind that I was probably the only girl on the refuge full of men. That was until I realized I had to change into my clothes outside of the truck (there’s no room to change inside) where all of the guys are doing the same thing. The look on some of their faces when they saw a girl getting all ready to go out duck hunting was priceless! I had a couple of guys come up to me and say, “So you’re going out huntin’ today are ya?” What a stupid question, well duh! I’m decked out in camouflage, have my gun over my shoulder and my calls around my neck, what do you think I’m here to do? Watch? Heck no, I’m here to try and shoot some ducks.

We walk out to the pond, not just a little walk over a bridge or through grass or anything like that. We walked at least two miles through sticky mud and nasty weeds that you get caught in and trip over. On top of that, now we had to walk through the water to a good patch of tules in the middle of the pond that we could sit and hide in. At this point my boyfriend warned me that in the pond are sometimes holes in the ground some big, some small and some huge. We walked into the water and we were only about knee deep. He said to make sure that I tested where I was about to step to make sure it was solid ground. I was so excited and nervous that I kept forgetting to make sure that I had good footing before I stepped down and of course I fell right into a hole. I sank about 2 feet and the water went up to my waist. Luckily my boyfriend was there to grab onto my hand and help me out. After that I made sure I had better footing.

We made it to the tule patch, set up our area and set out our decoys. Then all we had to do was wait until shoot time which was about 6:25 AM. The sun started to come up over the horizon, small birds made little tweets and ducks started quacking and flying low around the water patting their wings on the water splashing around like kids in a swimming pool. It was absolutely beautiful and almost as if at the same time all of their alarm clocks went off at the beginning of the sunrise and all of the creatures started to wake up. The experience of being awake before any of the wild birds was so peaceful.

Little did they know that it was 6:25 the peacefulness was about to disappear and all hell was about to break loose, steel pellets were about to rain on their parade. I’d never shot steel shotgun shells before; only lead which is only used for trap shooting. When you go hunting you can only use steel which is a much harder material than lead which produces less recoil. Despite my boyfriend telling me many times to try shooting steel so that I’m prepared when I go out and try to shoot a duck, I never tried it and I though that I was going to be fine, it can’t be that much harder. I thought that people were just trying to discourage me again from going hunting by saying that the recoil is much harder and kicks back a lot.

The first ducks started flying, I was ready to shoot, my boyfriend called the ducks in and the next thing I hear is, “Babe SHOOT!” I flew off of my seat, saw the duck in my sights, breathed out and slowly and squeezed the trigger. BANG! And I fell flat on my ass, in the middle of the pond, waist deep in slew water and I completely missed the duck.