During Duck Season Watch the Wind

 

Early season duck hunting is a joke, full of party favors and laughter all around. Late season duck hunting is a deadly serious game, complete with dead bodies for the inattentive.

I could have thrown late season fishing into the above comment. I passed a bass boat on the way to the lake yesterday, windchill down in the teens according to the guy on the radio. You can kill a wet fisherman in January just as quickly as you can a wet duck hunter, it just doesn’t happen as often.

Fishermen hate the wind in all seasons and will stay off the water even in July and August because of it. Duck hunters? They love the wind in their season. It makes the birds move and fall into the decoys for rest. What could be better?

Maybe a backside warmed by a crackling fire, and a hot cup of spiced tea to flavor the memories of your youthful stupidity. There are old duck hunters, and there are bold duck hunters. There are no old, bold duck hunters.

I cannot count for you the days on January waters that I found myself in trouble that could have been avoided. Almost always the wind was the overwhelming mitigating factor, more so than the cold water. No idiot duck hunter (and I was one) is going to jump into late season water on purpose, but the wind will put him there without asking permission. In the water in December or January? Now you are in trouble. Science tells us that you have fifteen minutes to get out and get warm.

As I got older in the late season duck hunting game, after several scared.... less hand to hands with The Old Man of The Sea, all my own fault, I started paying attention to daily wind forecasts. I didn’t care so much if it was going to rain or snow, cloud or shine, but how high was the wind going to blow? Anything over ten miles per hour kept me off January duck hunting lakes. And now, look at me: Somehow, I have gotten old.

For better or worse.

Copyright © 2015 Conrad M. Vollertsen

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