Under an Autumn Sky

The morning air was cold and frosty, but we didn’t care.  The sky was clear and becoming brighter at the passing of every minute as the sun slowly chased away the lingering stars.  It was a fairly silent morning—even the wind declined to make its way through the trees and across the open waters of the lake.  Some of the animals that hadn’t begun their long winter slumber were beginning to awaken to the beckoning of the sun, but for most it was still too early. 

I walked eagerly down to the shore of the lake and stood for a long moment looking out into the darkness. The air was fresh, cool and pure.  I took a long breath and then let it release back into the atmosphere from which it came. After a few short moments my eyes adjusted to the dim light of the dawn and I could see the far shoreline.  It was far too early for me to make out the familiar shape of ducks floating on the surface of the lake, but somewhere deep within my mind’s eye I could see them out there in large flocks inviting us to come out for a closer look.  My blood began to pump faster and faster as the adrenaline eased itself into my veins and out into the entirety of my body.  How many ducks sat out there in the darkness?  Ten?  Fifteen? Forty? I could only hope and dream for the time being, but soon the sun would betray the ducks their advantage. 

I walked back up to the truck where Jason and dad were standing.  Though they hadn’t walked to the edge of the water yet, they could sense the excitement that flowed from my body and just like chain lightning, it jumped from one and then the other, and then back to me again.  We pulled the boat out of the back of the truck and carried it down to the water where I had been standing only moments before.  This time it was Jason who stopped and looked off into the darkness that shrouded the beauty that surrounded us.  No doubt the same processes that happened to me also happened to him, and he turned to me, smiled and then nodded his head and rubbed his hands together to show his excitement.  Jason wore his emotions out on his sleeve and his reaction was no surprise to me. 
Dad joined us at the side of the boat for a moment, then walked down to the exact spot where Jason and I had stood once before and once again went through the same course of action the two of us had.  The possibility of what lay beyond the darkness of the imminent dawn was enough to fuel our engines and warm our hearts.  If snow and ice were falling on us at that exact moment, it would’ve been no different. 

We all hopped into the boat and gave it a silent nudge out from the banks of the lake.  The only sound that could be heard was the ores slapping against the water as they sliced through the cold surface and propelled us on towards our goal.  Our target was the far shore where the ducks always seemed to land.  We had no less than a legion of decoys to set out and settle into our natural blind behind a clump of swamp grass before the sun peeked above the trees.  We needed to get out of sight from incoming ducks if we were to have any chance.  It was true that any ducks that happened to have made their beds on the lake that night would know we were coming, but fortunately for us, they had short memories.

Upon reaching about twenty yards from shore we ran into our first problem.  As it was early November the tendency was for most lakes to begin to freeze.  The shallow spots would freeze first followed by the deeper regions of the lake.  There was a thin layer of ice extending out the entire twenty yards from shore.  We had few options available to us at this point so we did what any duck hunter worth his salt would do: set out our decoys along the edge of the ice and then proceeded to break our way through to the shore.

The going was not easy.  The ice was much thicker than any of us had anticipated.  I had rowed out about ten yards and then aimed the bow of the boat towards the shore where we wanted to go.  Then with all the force I could muster I began rowing as hard as I could, hoping our momentum would carry us most of the way through the ice.  When we hit the ice it was almost as if a gunshot had been fired as ice and metal collided and fought for space.  We drifted about five yards into the ice pack before we slowed down significantly.  I tried to row but the oars would barely penetrate the unbroken ice on each side of the boat.  It became painfully clear that the only thing this was going to get us was two broken oars and one crazy predicament.  This may be the point where a deer hunter would give up.  Just pack it up and go home and count the day off as a loss before it even began, but not us.  We were duck hunters.  We laughed in the face of impossible weather, trudged through near freezing waters, bared our faces to gale force winds – we sure would not give in to a little bit of ice.  We worked together like a well oiled machine, rocking the boat from side to side causing waves which in turn weakened the ice to the point of breaking up on either side of us.  Soon I had ample room to row the boat to our destination and slowly but surely we made our way to the shore.  When we finally pulled into our natural hiding spot, there was a trail of broken ice about seven feet wide, like a lazy stream flowing through the heart of the frozen ice. 

Now we were in position and it was time for patience to take over.  It could be hours or seconds before a flock would come flying over head, spot our decoys and then come in for a closer look.  We took every painstaking precaution to ensure that we would not be spotted by the wonderfully intelligent and surprisingly suspicious ducks that we were chasing.  From head to toe we were covered in natural colorings, mainly in the form of the most advanced camouflage patterns that man was able to conceive.  The goal was not to look like a tree, for due to the shape of our human body this was impossible, but rather the ground around the tree.  There was no doubt in our minds that we looked nothing like the humans we were and in this our deception would be complete. 

It was now fully light out as the sun had ascended above the barrier of the trees.  My watch told me it was a little after seven in the morning – we had already been out in the water for over an hour.  All of us sat patiently waiting, engaging in the occasional quiet conversation to make the time pass.  Our guns were loaded and ready, just waiting for the signal to come to life to travel from our brains down the nerves of our arms and out into our fingers.  The duck hunter’s gun is a marvelous thing indeed—and one of the toughest.  A duck hunter’s gun was expected to shoot three shells as quickly and accurately as possible.  This is not where the expectations ended however.  On some occasions it would be expected of the gun to endure periods of being submerged under water, either partially or fully and then to fire at full capacity shortly thereafter if a flock of ducks just happened to come within range. Not to be forgotten would be the countless numbers of times the gun would be dropped against the metal hull of a boat or the unforgiving edge of a rock.  Like the duck hunter the duck hunter’s gun was of a different breed entirely.  One may ask themselves why a gun would ever want to be a duck hunting gun with such high expectations placed on it.  However, the duck hunter’s gun, in one season, will most likely see more action than most guns will see in decades of use.  Guns exist to be fired and for this reason duck hunter’s guns are the happiest guns one will ever find. 

The minutes ticked on by and there was no sign of ducks anywhere to be seen.  All of us were equipped with our own pair of binoculars and we would immediately scan any anomaly we spotted on the surface of the water.  As the minutes kept passing by, we never lost hope.  We could feel in our blood that soon a flock would come over and even if that was the only flock we saw all day, it would be worth it.  Then, without warning from behind us there appeared a flock of seven ducks flying low and fast over the trees. 

There are many things that run through the mind of a duck hunter who spots a flock of ducks at close range.  First and foremost, an adrenaline rush comparable to few others surges through the veins and the senses become finely tuned within milliseconds.  Next, the duck hunter tries to calculate the distance between himself and the ducks and whether or not a shot would be feasible and if it wasn’t, when it would be.  After this, in an almost instantaneous manner actually, the duck hunter tries to identify the species of duck he is looking at.  Since there are countless species of duck and almost as many countless ways to incur a fine from the DNR, this is one of the most important matters for the duck hunter to resolve.  While all of these processes race through the brain, somehow the body gets the message to become ready to aim, fire and repeat. 

The ducks flew over our decoys and paid little attention, so I fumbled out my duck call and gave a sharp and quick hail call in an attempt to call the ducks back.  It’s hard to say if they reacted to my call or if it was their plan all along, but the flock banked a hard right and then spun around towards us.  They continued on towards us until they were within firing range.  Nine shots rang out in the span of what had to be seconds and seven ducks fell from the sky into the icy waters of the lake.  But then I snapped from my dream.

The ducks had taken a turn towards us and now they were screaming towards our decoys at an incalculable speed.  We had to make a decision if we would take them as they passed over our decoys or wait for them to circle once more as they often did and assume their landing positions.  It was always easy to tell when a duck intended to land on the water – they lock their wings into a gliding position and just coast in at a 45 degree angle.  This is where they are at their most vulnerable, for they are fast losing speed and are not in any position to change direction very quickly.  Like a battlefield general I made the decision that no doubt my dad and Jason had already resolved in their minds and commanded the group to hold steady.  All of us had our guns aimed, not knowing if we were all aiming at the same duck or three different ones.  We followed them in closer, trying to carefully calculate the amount of lead we’d need to use to knock them from the sky.  I continued to issue the hold command until my body told me it was the right time to fire by practically squeezing the trigger subconsciously and then shouted the command everyone was waiting for: FIRE. 

Shots rang out into the calm and silent morning.  What had begun as a tranquil scene had now exploded into World War 3.  All wildlife that was within earshot stood at attention, ready to run if the slightest additional threat had presented itself.  Fortunately enough for them that threat would not come by the hands that had created the sudden commotion that shattered the morning.  Thirty seconds later the shots died away and all is silent again for a brief second.  Then there is a sound that is not familiar to the woodland creatures tuning in to all the action: laughter.  Nine shots were fired and not one duck dropped from the sky.  We all laughed in disbelief that not one duck out of seven dropped.  With all of the steel that had been flying through the air the odds were so great that at least one duck would fall, it was an almost mathematical impossibility that one didn’t.  We laughed and joked and reloaded, all while watching the flock fly away, hoping that they would circle back one last time and forget where we were sitting so that we could have one more crack at them.  Not this time.

All of our shooting was not in vain, however.  All the noise had alerted the ducks that were stationed on small ponds and lakes that were nearby the one we were hunting and now they had taken to the air.  They couldn’t be sure where the shots were being fired from, so it probably wouldn’t hurt for them to switch lakes to play it on the safe side.  They circled the lake they were just sitting on a few times and then headed for the next nearest water hole they could find.  Little did they know that the inviting water hole now below them was the one that we were sitting on.

It didn’t take long for us to spot the massive flock coming over the trees.  The entire process that happened only moments earlier in our bodies began to happen again and we readied ourselves.  The flock that was bearing down on us was massive –the largest we had seen all year.  Each of us grabbed extra shells and had them ready in our hands so that we could reload quickly and have a second chance after the initial barrage.  They spotted our decoys and decided that there must be some advantage to this side of the lake since such a large flock had already landed here and flew a straight line for them.  We waited patiently until they were within range and then opened up with everything we had.

As the din begins to rise up from the water and into the sky, up beyond the trees the gunshots become mere echoes then die away.  Our laughter and joy rise above the clouds and away from Earth, out into the boundless frontier of space.  And somewhere encapsulated in that moment of time and space we existed –if only for a brief moment in the colossal engine that is time—there we were.