What kind of sport would cause a grown adult to lie awake, all night long? Waiting like a child on Christmas morning, with one foot hanging off the bed stuffed inside waders, poised for quick entry when the clock strikes 4:00 a.m. It happens. I’ve seen it. What kind of sport would roust me out of bed, on a chilly, drizzly Saturday morning, long before the sun even thought about peeking over the horizon? As I lay in bed pondering this very thought, it hit me, and I was out of bed in a shot. I was going hunting for Speckled Belly Geese and Snow Geese.

Now mind you, I hit the snooze button on my alarm every morning several times, when it is a workday, or any other day, except a hunting day. But, sleeping in the lodge on a foggy Saturday morning, when that alarm shrills through the early morning, I bounce out of bed, say howdy to Daisy my Labrador, and I am bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and beyond ready to find some waterfowl. Hitting the door, I saw several camouflaged friends meet and embrace.

While I have many friends and have enjoyed many hunts, I find that when friends hunt together, they stay together. Life long bonds are formed in hunting lodges and in the small, wet confines of a duck blind. The reality is that hunting and friendship are one in the same.

It is a lot more about the friendships that are shared and the camaraderie, the stories, the trust and laughter.

Like one of my hunting buddies said this weekend, there is something about laughing so hard your belly hurts, you can’t breath, your mouth is wide open and your face is frozen and no sound is coming out, that you just never forget.

I sat with my friend Brian Davenport of Fin and Fowl Outfitters located in Anahuac, Texas, in a duck blind, in the early morning. The fog was so thick the only thing that looked familiar was when I put my hand in front of face.Talking over a shared package of Nutter Butter cookies, which of course Scout, Brian’s Labrador received his fair share, there was a bond. I know that he is my friend for life. Brian smiled and said, as if reading my thoughts, “It really doesn’t matter how many birds we kill, it’s the friends you make that matter.”

He then handed me his Benelli Black Eagle II shotgun to use. All you hunters out there that know that gun, well, there is no more that needs to be said. For those of you unfamiliar with the Benelli, lets just say.’SWEET!’ Talk about a Cadillac. The fog made the hunt difficult; it was thick and heavy and stayed, never lifting until much later in the day.

Success depends on preparation, weather, and being in the right place at the right time. The birds were scattered and confused and we could not see them until they were right on top of us. We decided to try again the next day. The next morning we laid up on the ground in the newly tilled rice field, where we had seen thousands of Speckled Belly and Snow Geese, mixed in with several Pintails the afternoon before.

Arriving in the field early the next morning we set out the shadow decoys, then the group of hunters spread out along a ditch and lay down in the tall grass and waited.

As I lay hunkered down head to toe in Mossy Oak Shadow Grass, I realized that hunting brought me a sense of living in the moment.

There is something that happens to you, the heightening of senses and experience, the sense that you are there and at that moment, that is the only place that you are. It makes you appreciate life, moment to moment.

I looked around in the stillness, the sun was rising, pillars of mist hung slightly in the air, droplets of water dripped like clock strokes from leafless branches, and we lay still, in silence. Off in the distance I saw them. “There are some birds,” I said calmly. Trust me. I discovered there is not a hunter out there who ever says “There are some birds.” Usually, the first sighting in the air is followedwith “Everybody down, don’t move.” If they are really close, it is more likely to be, “Oh” something colorful and expletive, “don’t move!”

Any experienced waterfowl hunter will attest to the challenge of cleanly bagging ducks. They are fast, hard to target and truly seem to enjoy rocketing through the decoys when you least expect it. They are smart little devils. Geese come in a little slower, and I like them, being slower moving and a bigger
target.

Ducks and geese are most often scared away by movement, or something out of place. As the season rolls on they get smarter and more cautious. If I were getting my tail feathers shot at on a regular basis, when something caught my eye, I too, would figure something was amuck. When the birds do figure out something is wrong, someone in the blind will say, “They flared” more colorful and expletive words. “Who moved?”

Flared means the birds expressed their own form of colorful and expletive words and they turned tail feathers and ran.

Thousands of birds did come in that morning, wave after wave, Brian and his guides called, and the geese came gliding gracefully in. Many would come just out of range and we would hold, many more flared away from us, but several Snows were bagged and retrieved. Back at the lodge, the dogs ran and played; they had worked hard and were enjoying the free time. Everyone cleaned their kill, gently ribbed each other about missed shots or who bagged the most game, things that didn’t really matter.

I saw an array of men in all shapes and sizes in various degrees of undress as they shimmied out of wet waders, oblivious to the small girl that walked among them. We shook hands and exchanged e-mail addresses and I am sure I will hear from my new hunting friends soon. The mystique is what first caught me, the fascination of the untouchable, the reckless emotion that hits me at sunrise on a quiet marsh, the final turn of a call-fooled Greenhead Mallard or a Snow Goose, the realization that there is a relationship with the things around me.

What holds me are the friendships.