By: T. Edward Nickens
On my knees in the muck, I curled into a tiny ball-"or at least as much of a tiny ball as a man in size 12 neoprene waders could muster. I pressed my face so far into the bulrushes that the windblown reeds threatened to slice my retinas. But there were ducks overhead-"clouds of ducks, more ducks than I had ever seen in my life-"so I took my chances with long-term vision and willed myself not to twitch. Twenty feet in front of me floated a freshly shot shoveler hen, the bird's head propped up with a forked stick. Not much of a decoy spread, but glory of glories, that smiling duck pulled in a lone pintail. Another shot, another forked stick, and I had a pair of real McCoys-"and they worked a multiplier effect on incoming mallards. I dropped the nearest greenhead and grabbed another stick. My motley flotilla didn't draw every bird on the pothole, but it didn't have to. All I needed was a few ducks, and they were coming in by the bucketfuls. I couldn't help but laugh out loud at the perfection and completeness of the moment. There aren't many dreams-come-true in life, so I wallowed in the wonder of this one.