It real simple... we live back in here... dis is our home, and nobody don't fuck with us.

I shot ducks today and it was glorious.

I got on for the morning flight. I drove. I parked. I packed in. All told that was an hour. Then I set up shop and that consumed another hour. The sun was just beginning to say hi when I sat down for my pre-shooting cup of tea. Glorious.

One of the best parts of being a duck hunter is watching the sun come up while listening to an absolutely beautiful chorus of marsh birds. Everyone rehearses at night, I think. The song of the sun is astounding as it never really sounds like it should all fit together and yet it does. I'll never grow tired of the visual splendor of watching another day start with a sound track straight from Mother Nature. That bitch can play.

As beautiful as the initial spark of sunrise was it was over quickly. The fog rolled in thick and fast. It looked like something out of a movie. It took everything in me not to start making  the crazy nasal whine noise that Lance makes in Apocalypse Now. I had the cammo, the facepaint, the weapon. I didn't do it. It would have been rude.

Shooting ducks in the fog is fucking hard and fun and all other things that wingshooting should be. They come in fast and low mostly and you hear them splitting the air just before you see them and then they're gone. I killed a Shoveler to start. Three rounds, though, as he had the good angle on my position but I put him down hard. The fog thinned out a bit after an hour and another Shoveler came up from behind me but I swung around and dropped him in the dekes. A flight of Greenwing Teal came screaming through like they were on a strafing run. There were so many I opted to let them go rather than take one or two and wise up the rest of the crew. A couple came back so I shot one of them. He died like a real champ: flying low and fast and dodging the first shot and taking the second one as he rose. He spun into the drink in the most dramatic fashion. Such a drama queen, the Greenwing Teal. Next up a Bufflehead decided to dive bomb the dekes. He came in over my head, whistled past, and shot through the dekes. I got on him about 50 yards out and that was that for the little kamikaze.

There were a lot of misses in there as well. Two Mallards almost took my head off while I was having my second cup of tea. I got two rounds off but they were hauling ass and disappeared in the fog as quickly as they had come out of it. A couple of Gadwalls came in low off the south levy but busted me and went vertical immediately. Looked like they were suddenly on a fucking elevator. Good for them. More Greenwings came through and made a fool of me but such is shooting Greenwings, the little drama queens.

When it was all said and done and the fog cleared and the sun came out and I started regretting having thermals on underneath my waders, it was a beautiful morning spent afield. I strongly suggest you do something similar very soon because one day there'll be no hunting in SoCal.

Peace out, bitches!