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The Fat Blob Incident
Includes 20 Full Length Feature Articles plus Bonus Bits and Short Jokes
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Hunting Trip
Most people have a different idea of duck hunting than I do.
If you watch the Outdoor Channel, you'll see shows where 3-4 guys get together with a guide and sit in a cozy pit blind in the middle of some field.
The guide places a large spread of decoys all around them, blows his duck call like crazy, and as the ducks dive in all around he barks out the command, "take 'em!" as if nobody can figure out when to shoot without being told.
Personally, I can't think of anything more boring. Not because I have a problem with hunting ducks in such a manner, but simply because it never works for me.
Take this last Saturday for example. My hunting buddy had been telling me all week how the geese were landing in a field near the dairy that he manages. It was on his boss's land and he had permission to hunt it.
"You've got to come down and get some geese!" he told me over and over again.
Sure, whatever, I thought. I know better. I've hunted ducks and geese many, many times over the years and not once, not ever, have I had anywhere near decent results hunting over decoys. Oh I know they work well for others, but for me decoys don't trick the birds. Instead of telling the ducks and geese, "Hey look! Come land here. It's safe," it tells them, "Don't bother, this place is already occupied! Move on. Oh and by the way, fly very, very high and far away as you pass by."
Such was the case again as my hunting buddy's awesome goose field didn't attract a single bird while I was there.
So, after a disappointing day Saturday, I vowed to go out on Sunday and do it the right way, the Joe Humor way. In other words, freeze my butt off, work really hard at it, take really long, difficult shots, get all wet, flirt with hypothermia and drowning, and maybe, just maybe, come home with a few ducks.
With that in mind, I got up early, loaded up the canoe on the top of my truck, and headed out toward the Snake River.
It's been consistently cold this year, however, and so for a while I didn't think I was even going to find a place to stick my canoe in the water. One particular island, where I was going to hunt, was completely frozen in. There was no way to access it. The entire river was frozen solid.
So, I headed upstream to a section with faster currents. I don't have a dog at this point in time, so I had to be able to get my canoe out into the water to retrieve whatever I shot. Fortunately, I found an open pocket of water that was near the shoreline and I set up to hunt there.
The pocket of open water I was hunting over was roughly three hundred yards long. I did set out a few decoys on one end of it, in hopes they would actually get passing ducks to fly just a bit closer. Then I stuffed myself in under some brush and waited.
This section of the river attracts a few Mallards, but mostly Goldeneyes and a few Buffleheads. Goldeneyes are a blast to shoot, however. They fly high and fast most of the time, but will occasionally blow by just a few feet above the water as well. They make a distinct whistling sound with their wings that will often let you know they are around even when you can't see them.
You've got to lead your target by several feet when pass shooting at Goldeneyes. This can make for some long, fast, incredible shots. When you do hit one, they come down like a rock and slap the water or bank with a reverberating thump.
When you do get them to come in and land, however, they are reluctant to go back up. If in large groups, they'll fly, but singles or pairs prefer to dive when confronted by danger when already on the water. With a lot of the river frozen, this leads to opportunities where you can literally trap the ducks in small sections of open water and play what I like to call "pop-up duck".
The Goldeneyes will dive when they see you coming, swim underwater 30-60 yards, then pop back up. They will rarely fly even if you are standing right there on the bank in plain sight. Instead, they just dive again, swim away in one direction or another, then re-surface. So, you take shots at them in that split second when they re-surface before they dive again. That's pop-up duck, and with a fast diving duck, it can really eat up your ammo supply.
As I sat huddled on the brushy river bank, I watched and waited as hundreds of ducks and geese flew by overhead. Eventually, a few came down within range. I ended up getting five ducks on the morning, some as fly bys and others while playing pop-up duck near the decoys.
Now normally, you have to get your downed birds out of the water right away or they will just float off with the current. With ice in the river, however, I simply waited and let them pile up against the ice at the end of the open pocket.
Well, eventually there wasn't much flying by anymore and I decided to go out an get my birds. The second I put my canoe in the water, I knew I was in for a challenge. The river was a bit faster than I had thought, and the wind was blowing downstream as well. I had no problem getting to my ducks at the end of the open water, but man, getting back was a chore! I couldn't keep the canoe pointed upstream, I simply couldn't. The bow kept turning right back around and shooting out onto the ice. For a minute there, I thought I was going to end up stranded out on the ice pack, skidding along over the top of it like a dog sled minus the dogs.
Fortunately, though, the idea of rowing backwards proved to be successful. It took me about five minutes of hard paddling to gain the 60 yards upstream I needed to get back to where I could get out, but I finally made it.
Later on, when my son, who was supposedly going to show up at 6:30a.m., finally showed up -- four hours late --- we headed downstream to a much larger pocket of open water, about a quarter mile long. I wasn't at all worried about being out on the river now that I had a paddling partner, so when he got a couple of ducks we put the canoe in and headed out after them. We both got a couple more while we were on the water, too, making it well worth the trip. However, it still turned out to be a challenge getting around.
At the end of the open pocket, there was a bit of water flowing out over the ice. Naturally, one of the downed ducks floated on out there before we could get to it, so we headed right on out there after it. Suddenly, it appeared as if my fear of ending up skidding across the ice like a sled was going to come true after all.
Man, what an experience that was! We slid out across the ice on four inches of water, then the ice broke and the canoe splashed back down into the river. Then, we shot out across more ice, broke back through it, hit the ice again, broke it off again, slid over another part of it, broke that part of it off, and so forth. Finally, we caught up to the dead duck and attempted to back out of the mess we were in.
Trying to row against the current between the ice chunks was fun. Trying to push off on solid ice only to have more of it break was fun. Trying to follow the same path back that we had busted on the way in was a blast as well.
However, I couldn't help but think about how much fun I was having. Forget all those spoiled nimrods sitting in a cozy duck blind letting a dog do all their retrieving. This was duck hunting, Joe Humor style!
Eventually, we made our way out of the ice pack, rowed like crazy for a half hour or so to get back upstream to where we could get back to the bank, and retrieved every duck we had shot.
On the day, we got seven a piece, a full limit each. However, my son lost one of his ducks. It got "hawked" before we could get to it. By "hawked" I mean literally taken by a hawk. There had been one hanging around all day and I guess he finally decided that snagging one of our dead ducks was easier than catching one himself.
We ended up with 3 Buffleheads, 1 hen Mallard, 1 hen Widgeon, 8 Goldeneyes, and one duck that I still have not yet identified. It almost looked like a Widgeon, but not really. It's pretty late in the year to find immature ducks without full plumage, but maybe that's what it was.
Overall, it was quite a day. I nearly froze my fingertips off, wore myself out rowing, scared myself silly while ice sledding in the canoe, wound up with ice all over my shotgun, fell down repeatedly while trying to clamber around on the snow covered icy bank, and had to spend an hour or two warming up my cold, wet booty once we got home.
But hey, that's duck hunting, Joe Humor style. I had a great time, and I get to make duck jerky tomorrow.
What could be better?
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