Some day this war is gonna end.

This is the 1st draft of a piece I'm working on for my friend's hunting blog. What do you think?


This Are Duck Hunting: Some thoughts on a season past
By Hassan

Regrettably I’ve washed, scrubbed, and hung up the last of the decoys. The boat has been hosed off and tucked under its tarp. The blind bag is cleaned up and organized and in the closet with the rest of the gear. In short, duck season has come to its end once again and I am feeling rudderless and lost and sad. I guess I should take some small comfort in the fact that hogs, of which I’ve successfully killed none, are year round and spring turkey season is just around the corner. I should, but I won’t take comfort in these two facts. The reasons for this refusal of hope (the audacity of nope?) are complicated but I will, if you keep reading, force them down your metaphorical throat. To wit:

This season was, well, weird. The weather never really cooperated and if you don’t believe me check out the brainiacs at Ducks Unlimited and their weather comparison map for last year versus this year. The cold fronts that any self-respecting SoCal duck hunter relies on for massive numbers of ducks coming into gun range never really materialized. That lack of cold weather meant that to get any good gunning one had to travel up to Sacto for much of the year or, at the very least, Kern. (More on Kern and Sacto later.) I don’t mind traveling in fact I love traveling and hunting. Who doesn’t want to find all new birds to miss? The lack of any real weather had the more disastrous effect of making every hunt in SoCal a test of one’s mental and physical fortitude. When the birds aren’t flying and the mercury or digital gizmo or what have you is hitting 80° it’s the rare duck hunter that can hunker down for the long haul and slowly hit a limit. Even with all of that I’m still going to miss duck season for quite awhile.

I like to think that you can learn something new every day and this season taught me that less is more. When it’s hot and sunny and shade is suddenly a rare commodity it pays to not have 5 million decoys and a ton of other gear with you even if you’re only a stone’s throw away from your vehicle. Sure, at 4am it’s nice and chilly and humping a ton of shit 100 yards isn’t really that big of a deal but come 10am you’re going to regret owning most of said shit. I know a lot of guys might disagree but this season I started carrying fewer decoys and tried to match the decoys to what I thought the ducks might be up to on the day. Fewer decoys also meant that anytime I wanted to pick up and move in the “free roam” areas in Kern, Sacto, Delevan, etc. I didn’t need to start looking for a Sherpa army to help me. The main point of duck hunting is to be where the ducks want to be and if you can’t move quickly you can miss ducks. It’s still a lot of work but I miss it already.

This year’s trip to Sacto for my birthday week of duck hunting went a lot like last year’s: saw tons of ducks, missed a few shots, killed a couple of ducks, and worked my ass off. Can’t complain, the wife lets the dog and me out of the house for a week and I get to shoot ducks and quail and rabbits and not have to do dishes or laundry. Happy Birthday to me indeed! Even though I tend to have rotten luck in Sacto and Delevan I love heading up there as the environs you’re hunting in are just amazing and there really are ducks everywhere all the time, even with the crappy nice weather we were cursed with all season. I miss Sacto NWR.

Kern was a lot of fun this year seeing as I only got up there once the whole season. Like I said, it was a weird season. That one trip made the season for me in a way as I was up there with the one and only Rob Knox and we took my duck boat out for its maiden voyage. We shot a ton of teal, figured out some stuff about the boat, and missed a boatload of ducks. In short, it was a duck hunting trip. Kern is one of those places that if you don’t go there a lot you never really get to know it well enough to hunt it so I think our success was equal parts luck and perseverance. I like to tell myself, and I do this at the beginning of every season, that I’ll go up to Kern more and stop being lazy and going to San Jacinto but it never happens and I’m ok with that, I’ve made peace with my slack. However, after taking the boat up there I’m making a solemn oath to get up to Kern more than once next season. I’ve probably jinxed the hell out of myself at this point. I miss Kern and my duck boat.

The real highlight of this season, besides all of the ducks I shot, was introducing several people to the subtle joys and exquisite agony of duck hunting. Oxwooders Chris Hirt and Rob Knox gamely lit out with me early one morning to stand in the sweat line at San Jacinto only to get denied until around 10am, which is basically quitting time for most duck hunters. We sat around the parking lot for awhile looking at ducks and listening to other people missing until we fell asleep. When we finally got on we got a so-so blind and did our best. I was particularly excited to call in a Northern Shoveler who streaked over several other blinds and had then straight into out blind so that Chris could shoot him. What a civilized bird. Rob waited until Chris and I were collecting the decoys and the sun was going down before he quickly knocked down all of the birds he shot that day. He’s a very efficient hunter, that Rob Knox. I also took my brother and my brand new brother in law out to San Jacinto for an equally ridiculous wait to get into a blind. The guys had a great time even though we got on late and into a sort of free roam area with some deep sections. My brother’s waders filled up at one point but he emptied them out and kept right on hunting. We shot a few birds but mostly we talked shit and had a good time and I tried to show them how you hunt ducks. I even got to take my wife and daughter out on a hunt despite my wife being 8 months pregnant at the time. My daughter took a shot at a duck and missed but hey, she’s only 10! She’s got a ton of missing left to do and some occasional hitting of targets as well. My wife managed to kill her first duck on that trip and sure, it was a Ruddy, but you’ve got to start somewhere. I love taking people hunting and now that the season is over, well, I’ll miss that too.

The dog. What to say about Ghost, the little Brittany ya love to hate. No, I don’t hate him, I just wish I could get him out more often. He fell through the ice a few years back on a pheasant retrieve in South Dakota and he’s been leery of water ever since. Not a good trait for a duck dog but I guess I officially got him for upland hunting so I should give him a pass. We did have a few good days out in the shallow marshes where his hydrophobia didn’t come into play. There’s nothing quite as satisfying as watching your emotionally disturbed pup charge through the tules looking for downed ducks. That it’s a rarity for me makes it that much more special every season. Again, I’ll be missing you, uh, image of my dog in the water. Or something.

When I look back on this season I’ve got to say I’m pleased. As always I missed a lot of easy shots but when has that ever stopped a real hunter from going hunting again? The weather didn’t cooperate and there weren’t as many opportunities as there were last season but just as in surfing who the hell wants to hear “You should have been here earlier/last year/before it got lame”? Ever forward, right? I got to take in some absolutely gorgeous sunrises and sunsets, watched noble birds wheel overhead and zip through my dekes, listened to the sounds of the marsh, and guided a few people into what I can only hope is an obsession with waterfowling as intense and enjoyable as my own. What else does one really need to make a good season of waterfowling or anything else? Instead of missing the season I think I’ll start planning for next season.


Anywayway, feedback would be appreciated.

Peace out, bitches!