My baptism into the awesome sport of duck hunting took place when I was twenty-nine years old and should’ve known better.
My “John The Baptist” was long-time buddy Ned who had duck hunted since high school. Before dawn we waded into the shallow waters of John Redmond reservoir in eastern Kansas. I could hear the gentle whisper of wings overhead, and though I had never heard that sound, I knew what it was. As daylight approached we saw ducks flying far out over the reservoir and I remember how I thought, with their speed, their outstretched necks, they resembled little fighter planes like the P-51 Mustang my brother Paul had flown in World War Two.
Ned and I never fired a shot that morning but I was mesmerized by watching the birds fly. I loved seeing the sun slowly creep up over the horizon. And because it wasn’t very cold , I didn’t mind standing in muddy, waist-deep water as it seeped into my borrowed chest waders.
I had become a duck hunter.
Fast forward to now, when my friend Jay and his fourteen year-old son Chuck – or Charlie – depending on the moniker he chooses at the moment, are hunkered in a blind at the Lone Oak Duck Club in western Missouri. Fourteen-year-old Chuck has been doing this since he was old enough to walk. Surely he feels the same emotions I felt that morning long ago as I stood in the muddy waters of Redmond reservoir.
He’ll be a duck hunter all his life.
Glad youre still getting out there. My son Austin seems to have put flyfishing aside and loves duck hunting, even though he cant seem to have a pair of waders that dont leak.. I still think its an awful lot of work.