As many of you know, the night before any season opener can be a long night of anxiousness. Such is the case for me the night before duck season opens, and this last year was no exception. While I didn’t spend the night camped out at my spot in the back of my pickup, I had the spot staked out. My husband and I alternated driving the four wheeler past the slew in the morning, mid-afternoon and the evening. There were always ducks sitting on the slew, so we decided to test out the waters. Justin pulled his waders on, walked out into the slew and disappeared into the cattails. He reappeared only to say, “It’ll work. It’s a bit muddy though.” A bit muddy. A bit muddy was no problem, but what Sheldon, Jake, Jeremy, Justin and myself walked into that early morning was not what I would consider “a bit muddy.” It was horribly muddy! I barely made it 10 feet before I spotted a muskrat hut and climbed up on it. I guarded the guns and held up the spotlight while the guys set up the decoys. They’d take one step, laugh, nearly fall over and laugh some more. Suddenly, Jake fell into the water. “Man down!” he yelled.
“Second man coming!” Jeremy called out as he struggled to get to Jake to help him up. Laughter echoed off of the cattails. “Woman laughing!” I called out, which might have been a mistake because when I landed knees first in the muddy water and called out for help, the guys just laughed. It was pretty funny I suppose, but getting out by myself was no easy task!
Soon enough the sun was up, and the shooting started. Then the fun really got underway. The dog decided that she wasn’t going to retrieve all of the ducks, which left us to walk across the slew in the sticky mud to get the ducks. By the time we hit 14 ducks total for the group, we were all too tired to move! A flock of mallards came in right as two of the guys were in the spread retrieving ducks. It would have been a more successful hunt had it not been for the mud, but it was very memorable none-the-less!
So, how do we follow up a duck hunt in South Dakota? With my homemade peach pie and follow it up with McDonald’s fast food and a Canada goose hunt before sundown! Jake’s stepfather owns plenty of farm land. He gave us a call telling us the geese had been in his harvested corn field all week long every evening eating. We loaded up the pickup with the goose decoys, blind and calls and headed out for our second hunting adventure of the day.
We began to set up about four o’clock with the decoys and ground blinds. We noticed one of Jake’s stepfather’s cows had gotten into the corn field. We paid little attention to her as we set up, until I asked if someone had shut the gate. We turned to look at the cow, who was about 35 yards from the wide open gate and heading straight for it! Jake jumped up and ran as fast as he could towards the gate while we all laughed hysterically. He made a wide circle around the cow and was able to get her away from the gate. He opened the gate to the pasture and herded her into the pasture where the rest of the cows were. While Jake wiped sweat from his face, we wiped tears from our eyes.
Off in the distance we heard geese. We ducked into the blinds as the geese began to move into the corn field. They were landing down the field from us, and not anywhere within shooting range. Anyone who’s hunted with me knows that I have a bad habit of falling asleep when I’m in a layout blind. That day was no exception.
“Take ‘em! Stacie! Take ‘em!” I woke up half way, my eyes fuzzy because my contacts had dried out. I looked up to see two geese flying right over top of my blind and only about 5 feet off the ground! I scrambled for my gun and by the time I had placement of the gun, they were behind me. The guys took a few shots and dropped both of the geese.
“Were you asleep?!” Justin asked.
“Yea....a little bit.” I yawned slightly disappointed. If I hadn’t been asleep, I could have been 2 geese ahead of the guys.
“She was asleep!” shouted Justin to Jake and Sheldon. They laughed.
“Instead of shooting at them, why didn’t you just smack them with your gun? They were close enough!” they laughed some more.
“Ha ha ha. Geese!” I pointed. Laughter stopped and the four of us popped back into our blinds. The calls rang out, and the geese began to veer into our spread. Soon enough, the sun was on its way down, and we began to pick up the decoys and pack up the truck. Yet another successful hunt for Day One of duck season, and I am glad to have hunted it.
