Humor

Bill Heavey's First Turkey (With A Little Help From Ray Eye)

fieldandstream-editor — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 20:00:00 -0400

Classic Outdoor Cartoons from the Pages of Field & Stream

fieldandstream-editor — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 20:00:00 -0400

A Sportsman's Life: The Collected Columns of Bill Heavey

fieldandstream-editor — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 05:00:00 -0400

Bill Heavey Hunts Pheasants in North Dakota

fieldandstream-editor — Sun, 30 Apr 2006 20:00:00 -0400

Last summer, Jack Unruh, Illustrator of this column, and I, with no more sense than a couple of babies playing with steak knives, convinced ourselves to take a pheasant hunting road trip to North Dakota in October. We talked it up over the phone until we fell for our own B.S. about pheasants that had never seen a hunter and dogs leaping through the prairie grass. Then, the week before the trip, we both came clean. I admitted I had never actually hunted pheasants. Jack mentioned that his dogs were "unfinished." "Willy Mae points when she's in the mood but won't hold it. Rudy is like her, only without as good a nose. Plus he pees on my leg sometimes. It's a dominance thing." He had also realized that he had better pack a sandwich, as the 1,300-mile drive from Dallas to Bismarck might take an entire afternoon.

To break up the trip, Jack invited his friend Richard Stucky along. Richard is an independent farmer in Pretty Prairie, Kansas, population 604. He doesn't make much money or get off the farm often, and we sort of patted ourselves on the backs for including him, as if we had started a Take a Farmer Hunting Foundation.

Actually, Richard—a stocky, slow-talking fellow about my age who looks younger, probably because he isn't worried all the time—hardly detracted from the trip at all. His 100-pound German shorthair mix, Dusty, was a dream dog. "Who trained that critter?" I asked Richard one day, as Dusty released a rooster into his hand. "Me," he said. Turns out that Dusty gets almost daily practice in season on the quail that Richard raises and hunts on the farm. Depending on what he and his wife, Connie, feel like eating, he also goes after deer, ducks, geese, and rabbits. He has a bass boat and four coonhounds. I was losing sympathy for poor Richard by the minute. Jack volunteered that his friend was the only guy he'd ever known who'd worn out a shotgun. "And he did it on birds alone. No targets."

I asked Richard about farming. "There's no money in it, but I'd die if I had to get a desk job. I've got about 200 acres of my own and lease another thousand. Wheat. And I do custom harvesting to subsidize the farming. But it pretty much lets me hunt whenever I want to."

"So you have all those big machines?"

"Yeah."

"Aren't you sort of screwed if one breaks down?"

"Well, you just have to fix it."

It turns out that poor old Richard could fix just about anything: green hunting dog, combine, or clogged motel ice machine. He permanently fixed any pheasant that got up within 40 yards of his battered, no-name side-by-side. "Secondhand. Fella at the gun shop said it's a Belgian. Little shorter stock and a lower comb. Fits me good, especially in heavy clothes."

We soon discovered that he was also the best judge of public-land cover likely to hold birds, so Richard rode shotgun, Jack drove, and I slept in the back. Richard got his three-bird limit every day, often before lunch. Jack limited out some days. And several times I scared a bird so severely with my first two shots that it committed suicide by flying back into the third. Richard, seeing how spastic I became every time a feathered Improvised Explosive Device went off at my feet, had to bite his lip to keep from laughing. "You gotta relax, Bill," he finally said. "They hardly ever attack people."

One afternoon, I asked Richard about the shotgun Jack had mentioned. "Dad bought me that gun new, a Franchi, back in 1967 when I was 12. And eventually the little hook in the receiver block that pulls the empty shell just broke off. I got a ¼-inch chunk of key stock, cut it, and filed it down to about the size and shape I needed. And then I got a torch and tempered it, guessing how hard it—"

"Wait," I said. "You tempered it?"

"Sure. That's where you—"

"I know what tempering is, Richard." I sat there both admiring and resenting this damn hayseed of a man, a guy who hardly ever left Kansas but knew things I would never know, who was overflowing with kindness and wisdom and vitality. I suddenly felt like a 50-year-old puppy, a bird dog not yet broken from a bad habit of chasing the wrong animals: fame, money, and stuff. I didn't know how to explain this feeling and knew better than to try.

"Listen, Richard. Did I ever tell you about the home theater system I carved out of a pumpkin? Nine speakers, 400 watts, great big flat plasma screen..."

Richard just chuckled and shook his head, amused by how some people get themselves all worked up over the simplest things. "You're a hoot, Bill. I swear. You really are." Five minutes later, he told Jack to pull over. "Oughta be some birds in this one," he said. He opened the box and Dusty hit the ground running.

Field & Stream Reviews Six Classic Angling Books

fieldandstream-editor — Sun, 30 Apr 2006 20:00:00 -0400

Mark Twain once said that a classic is "a book that people praise and don't read." Maybe. But it would be a shame to overlook the classics of angling literature. If you want to learn more about the origins of our sport and start building a library of solid angling books, you can't possibly go wrong with these titles.

ITCHEN MEMORIES BY G.E.M. SKUES
Skues fished the same beat on the fabled Itchen River for 55 years. His advocacy of nymph fishing raised the ire of dry-fly purists, but he won converts by pointing out that rising fish might actually be taking emergers just under the surface. Astonishingly, this was big news 100 years ago. Itchen Memories was published just after Skues' death (at 90-plus years), and its value lies chiefly in its re-creation of the calm, meditative life alongside one of England's premier trout streams. H. Jenkins, 1951.

WHERE THE BRIGHT WATERS MEET BY HARRY PLUNKET-GREENE
Plunket-Greene was an Irish opera singer who fished the Bourne, a 3-mile tributary of the Test. Published 82 years ago, the book is a memoir of angling in the halcyon days of Edwardian England. The author seems to be a perfect compilation of fishing virtues—zeal, hopefulness, skill, and good humor—altogether a companionable fellow and an excellent writer. Phillip Allan & Co., 1924.

A RIVER NEVER SLEEPS BY RODERICK L. HAIG-BROWN
Haig-Brown was an Englishman who emigrated to Canada's Vancouver Island. He thought of himself (rightly so) as a writer who fished, not a fisherman who wrote. He wrote 24 books in all, but this one is perhaps the most famous. "I still don't know why I fish or why other men fish, except that we like it and it makes us think and feel." It's hard to improve on that. William Morrow & Co., 1946.

FISHLESS DAYS, ANGLING NIGHTS BY SPARSE GREY HACKLE
"Sparse Grey Hackle" was the pen name of A.W. Miller, a journalist and member of a fishing club that leased water on the Beaverkill. The book is a collection of short pieces, most of them humorous in the self-deprecatory style that seems to be a feature of much of angling's best writing. There's also a story on Theodore Gordon that gives some interesting biographical information on this elusive maven of American flyfishing. (Gordon, by the way, corresponded regularly with G.E.M. Skues, who instructed Gordon in upstream tactics.) Crown Publishers, 1971.

TALES OF SWORDFISH AND TUNA BY ZANE GREY
Zane Grey's reputation rests mostly on his Western novels, which were extremely successful and supported his real passion, which was catching fish—of all species, and the bigger the better. (At one time or another he held world records for 14 different species.) He also wrote eight fishing books, and you could argue that they are superior to his novels. Tales of Swordfish and Tuna is representative of his work and follows Grey from Nova Scotia in search of giant tuna to the waters off Catalina Island for swordfish. Grey was an obsessive and competitive angler, but he was also a careful observer, and his fishing books are combinations of exciting action and sensitive reflection on the sport and the natural world. Harper & Brothers, 1927.

A SUMMER ON THE TEST BY JOHN WALLER HILLS
Zane Grey once said that he thought the English fishing writers were superior to the Americans. I don't know that he believed it, but it is certainly true that many of the classics are English. A Summer on the Test is one. It has been quoted in practically every angling anthology produced since it appeared, and it has been acclaimed as one of the most lyrical, beautiful books ever written. Essentially a novice's guide to fishing chalk streams, it takes the angler through the year and tells of the conditions that will be met, the flies to use, and how the day's fishing should be planned. Phillip Allan & Co., 1924.

Lessons from Hunting Camp from Field & Stream's Bill Heavey

fieldandstream-editor — Tue, 28 Feb 2006 19:00:00 -0500

Any time youthrow together a bunch of guys who don't know one another in hunting camp, ittakes a bit of scratching and sniffing before the top dog emerges. I have beenin this situation often enough to know three things about the process:

1. I am not inthe running.

2. The initialfront-runner rarely holds the lead for long.

3. Watch out forthe fat guy.

I was recentlyhunting caribou above the Arctic Circle in Alaska (a phrase, incidentally, thatI now work into every conversation I have, including with whomever is on theother end of the intercom at the big red drive-up menu at Wendy's), when Ifound myself sharing a tent with Steve Freese, 56, a newly retired DouglasCounty, Nebraska, cop, who clocks in at 5-foot-8 and about 245. He has thewidest-set eyes I've ever seen on a human and a head like a bowling ball.

The younger menfigured that putting the two hunters most at risk for rapid-onset Alzheimer'sin the same tent was a no-brainer, which suited us fine. Young guys invariablyassume their lives are unique and fascinating, but older guys know that,superficial differences aside, we're really all as alike as eggs.

The superficialdifference between Steve and me was that I spent 10 minutes each morningrooting around in my duffel for any socks and underwear that might have beenmiraculously freshened by 24 hours in a tightly packed bag, while Steve wouldsimply fillet a vacuum-sealed plastic pouch and remove clean socks and longjohns. He had made these packets up using a Cabela's food vacuum sealer."Handiest damn thing you ever saw," he said. "Food is just thebeginning."

As we all sataround the fire the first night, Steve sipped a Beam-and-Sam's-Club-cola. Oneof his last duties as a police captain, he said, had been as a trainer,whipping new recruits into shape before they could hurt themselves or, moreimportant, older cops. "First thing, I'd ask them, 'How many of you guyshave heard that there's no such thing as a stupid question?' And they'd be soeager, you know, just clawing over each other to get their hands up first.'Well, that's a bunch of bull crap, 'I'd tell them. 'Your best move for thenext two years is to shut up and listen.'"

Later, we allweighed in with our hunting plans and ambitions. Steve opined that he was aslikely to take a caribou close to camp as not; other factors being equal, hepreferred less hauling to more. Sure enough, at about 2 P.M. the next day, hedropped a heavily racked bull just 350 yards from camp. Hearing the shot, Ihustled over to help, arriving in about 20 minutes. By that time, Steve wascleaning his fingernails with his knife. At his feet lay four neatly butcheredquarters, hide still on to protect the meat, and a small mountain of expertlycut tenderloins, backstraps, neck roasts, and rib meat. Nearby were the clean,white bones of his bull, innards intact. It was astounding knife work. "Youdidn't gut him," I said, making my daily entry in the Stating the ObviousSweepstakes.

"Just morework," he replied.

I made him a dealon the spot that I'd carry his meat if he'd help butcher mine. When they sawthe carcass, most of the other guys followed suit. The fat man's stock hadbegun to rise. Steve also turned out to be the best cook in camp, pushing ithigher still. It was as if he had known all along he would be the lead dog andcouldn't be bothered to compete. Pretty soon, he had only to casually note thatwe were running low on water or that a pan needed cleaning before one of us, meincluded, would quietly hop to. One of the younger guys, handing him aBeam-and-Sam's-Club after Steve had made the venison fall off the guy's bulllike it was overcooked stew meat, asked if the drink was mixed to his liking.Steve nodded deeply, then threw me a little wink as if to say, Rookies. Yougotta love them.

Everybody endedup taking a bull, some as far as 2 miles away over the tundra. None was as bigas Steve's. Last I heard, at least two of the guys had bought vacuum sealers,along with a large supply of gallon bags. Steve says those are the perfect sizefor a change of socks and long johns.

I called Steverecently and got him in a duck blind along the Missouri River, where he washunting, evidently in the company of a cop he had once ridden with. "Hangon a sec, Bill," he said. Gusts of wind buffeted the mouthpiece, then Iheard that familiar voice calling: "Same rules as in the squad car, Kevin.If the weather turns bad and we've only got one raincoat, it's mine." Itsounded as if the fat man was doing just fine.

How Bill Heavey (Nearly) Taught His Daughter to Love Fishing

fieldandstream-editor — Sun, 31 Jul 2005 20:00:00 -0400

The first rule introducing a kid to fishing is that you absolutely must catch fish. Later on, he or she may be open to the idea of "enjoying the experience." But at 5, believe me, they are out for blood. You get two, maybe three shots before even the dumbest Clifford the Big Red Dog DVD beats the hell out of watching a bobber do nothing. And then you have lost your child to all sorts of horrors: gangs, methamphetamines, violin lessons.

The first time I take Emma fishing, she is psyched right up until she steps into the canoe. Normally, water holds no terror for her. But now, just as we are about to shove off, her lower lip starts to tremble. "Gustave," she whispers.

Gustave is an all-too-real Nile crocodile we have recently seen on a National Geographic special. He is more than 20 feet long and in the past few decades has eaten over 200 people, mostly fishermen in a river near Lake Tanganyika. The story of the French naturalist trying to trap Gustave for study made for a riveting documentary. The only problem was that he failed. Gustave is still out there.

"Don't worry, Monk-a-lula," I tell Emma. "Gustave never comes here. It's too cold." Emma checks the shoreline for crocs. I can almost see the machinery in her brain weighing her father's perfect record (so far) of keeping her safe versus the primordial reptilian monster. The first tear streaks her cheek. Game over.

The second time, I decide to fish from shore. Emma has already shown remarkable casting potential with her little Tigger-themed push-button outfit, recently putting so much wrist into a cast with the yellow "fishy" practice plug that she snapped the line. I bait a No. 6 Eagle Claw hook with a worm just below the bobber. Emma attempts three casts, none of which reach the water. I gently take over, but the rig is so light that even I can barely get it out there. Fishless after two minutes, she starts throwing gravel into the water. "Monk, that scares the fish," I tell her.

"That's okay," she assures me brightly. I change locations, wanting at least to produce a fish so she understands the goal here. She follows, with larger handfuls of gravel.

"I'm fishing here," I say. There is a silence.

"Can we go home?" she asks. Zero for two.

It's the bottom of the ninth inning. Unless we get on fish quickly the next time, my daughter will be lost to me forever. She will become an animal rights activist and be trampled to death by hogs while attempting to liberate the stockyard at a Jimmy Dean plant.

The day of reckoning finds us at a shallow bass pond. I am prepared with two Shimano kids' outfits (one for backup), a bucket of minnows, juice boxes, string cheese, SPF 50 sunblock, insect repellent, and spare underwear. Emma works up the nerve to stick her hand in the bait bucket. When a minnow brushes her fingers, she giggles and yells, "They like me!" I bait one through the lips and toss it to a fishy-looking corner. It dances around for five minutes, nudging the bobber this way and that, and I am sure we are about to nail one. But it never happens. This is evidently bluegill water.

We go looking for worms and hit pay dirt by uprooting sod near a seep downhill from the pond. Emma cannot believe the abundance of the earth. Each new worm sends her into near delirium. "Another one!" she squeals. We put two dozen worms in a cigarette pack we find on the ground.

Three minutes later, the bobber heads south like a share of Enron stock, and we have our first bluegill. "That is a huge fish!" I say of the 5-incher flapping at the end of the line. "A humongous-bungus fish! And you caught it!" All 34 pounds of my daughter are squirming with excitement. I ask if she wants to let it go.

"No! I want to keep it! I want to eat it! Let's catch some more!" We do.

I'm sure there will be other memorable moments in my youngest daughter's life: kindergarten, a first date, graduation, marriage. But I will keep forever the image of Emma's face, of the pure and triumphant delight as she lifted that snapping fish up into the air.

Family life does not linger long upon such summits. That very night, Emma and I tangle over the number of Barbie dolls allowed in the bathtub. I set the bag limit at 10 to delay the inevitable clogging of the drain with synthetic hair. Furious at such tyranny, my daughter screams the worst insult she can think of: "Stupid. Little. DADDY!" Ten minutes later, as I am tucking in the still-damp light of my life, she stirs in her half-sleep and mumbles. "Daddy.Go again tomorrow?"

"Fishing?" I ask.

"Yeah," answers a small voice falling back into slumber. "But first digging worms."

Bill Heavey Hits the Blind Hog Jackpot

fieldandstream-editor — Thu, 31 Mar 2005 19:00:00 -0500

Once or twice a year, some manufacturer of hunting gear mistakes me for a serious outdoor writer and invites me on a free hunt. Since the call usually comes two days before the event, I am obviously not their first choice. But if Philip Bourjaily suddenly has a custom shotgun fitting or David E. Petzal needs his back waxed for a Hot Shots of the Gun World photo shoot, they may call me. As a writer whose only tangible asset is his reputation, I have a strict policy for dealing with all such offers. I accept immediately.

The people arranging this one were the manufacturers of Gore-Tex fabrics and ScentLok hunting duds, products that rank right up there with the pyramids and Britney Spears as among the greatest creations in history. They invited me to a two-and-a-half-day whitetail hunt on the 20,000-acre Halff Brothers Ranch in South Texas. The bad news was that it was for "management" bucks, the small deer that are periodically removed from the herd. The good news was that in South Texas these are gargantuan, bigger than 99 percent of the deer a typical hunter sees in his lifetime.

On a short hunt, it's important to start botching things up early. At the airport, I was unable to lock my bow case because I had left the key on the kitchen table. "You don't lock it, you don't take it," the security guy said. Every pore in my body opened and began to leak sweat. I was saved by Eric Eshleman, a TSA screener who fills his downtime on the job by picking luggage locks. He locked the case using a twisted paper clip, then sent me on my way with the new key. I hereby nominate him as the permanent head of Homeland Security.

I didn't mess up again for nearly 20 hours. But bright and early the next morning, I decided to leave my release in the truck when guide Greg Bladgett and I were dropped off. We sat in a pop-up blind, as lethal as lawn jockeys, while a high-racked 7-pointer fed contentedly just yards away. Greg and I must be related, because he had decided to leave his cellphone in the truck, so we couldn't call anyone to bring the release back. After a long silence, he dribbled tobacco juice in the dirt and whispered, "Aren't we a couple of gold-plated idjits?"

On the final morning, with my chances to get a deer running out, Greg saw me readying my bow and said, "Ain't gonna need that today." As I hadn't re-zeroed my rifle, he handed me his bull-barreled 7mm mag, equipped with a 4×12 scope, and a handful of 140-grain ballistic-tip handloads. We set up in the dark, prone behind a log looking straight down at least 400 yards of road. At dawn, five does emerged to feed. Ten minutes later, I put the crosshairs on the shoulder of a shooter buck and squeezed. When the smoke cleared, Greg turned red. "You shot the wrong buck!" he hissed. Then he turned pale. "I'm going to get fired."I had shot the only buck I had seen, which had since vanished. Better—or worse—much farther down the road lay a second, larger buck in its final throes.

Greg told me he had seen the second buck just before I fired, knew it was too big, and figured it wouldn't make any difference on the shot of the deer we had agreed I would take. Greg thought the deer I'd aimed at did not react as if it had been hit. I was pretty sure I'd made a good shot.

Together, we walked down the road. At 120 yards, the animal I'd aimed for lay 15 feet off the road, as dead as a rock. He was a big, beautiful 130-class eight. We walked another 130 steps to the second buck. Evidently the bullet had continued on and hit it in the spine and femoral artery. He was definitely out of my price range—a 150-class trophy with 9 points, tons of mass, and kickers galore. Depending on how you chose to look at it, I had made either the shot or the screwup of a life-time. Greg called his boss, who in turn called the ranch manager and biologist. "Don't you touch a thing,"he said to me. "I'm gonna show them exactly how it happened."

Many conferences in closed truck cabs later, Greg was cleared. The county limit is two bucks, so that wasn't a problem at all. In the end, the ranch manager decided that I could keep the buck I'd shot at. The second will be on display this fall in the lodge of the Halff Brothers Ranch. They took my photo holding both bucks—more antler than I'd cumulatively killed in my lifetime, looking exactly like what I was, a no-name hunter who'd just hit the blind-hog jackpot. And I just want to say that I couldn't have done it without my Gore-Tex and Scent-Lok clothing. It is absolutely the best.

Why Bill Heavey Is Happy Hunting Season Is Over

fieldandstream-editor — Mon, 31 Jan 2005 19:00:00 -0500

I never expected to say this, but here goes: I'm glad the season is almost over. I say this for the following reasons:

•If, like me, you are fool enough to dream of killing a monstrous whitetail buck with a pointy stick, the state where I hunt guarantees your right to have at it from mid-September to the bitter end of January. And until the season runs out and hunters still afield are subject to prosecution, this is exactly what I intend to do, even though on a cold January afternoon I am about as likely to see Jesus wandering around during daylight hours as a deer.
•During a lunch meeting with my boss (me) back in August, we drafted a memorandum of understanding stating that the company would adopt a liberal leave policy during hunting season for all staff (me). It turns out that revenue can take a substantial hit when the corporate goal is "earn enough for gas money for the next three months." Especially in this global economy.
•I seem to be aging rapidly. The circles under my eyes are developing circles of their own. I am experiencing frequent bouts of blurred vision, forgetfulness, and confusion as to my whereabouts at any given moment. So this is how it feels to be David E. Petzal on a good day.
•Failing to get a reaction from me with standard by-mail death threats, the Book-of-the-Month Club has hired a bounty hunter to find me.
•The guy who holds down the midnight shift at my local 7-Eleven rings me up for a 32-ounce coffee and an Artery Buster Biscuit even before I place the cellophane bag of death in the microwave. He may do this simply to be helpful; he may do it to minimize the time the wild-eyed guy wearing camo pants and an untucked pajama shirt spends in the store.
•The 1-ounce amber bottles currently rolling around under the seats in my car are making such loud clinking sounds that the entire family now refuses to ride in it. They have also made complaints about the perfume, which I would describe as a bracing blend of single-doe estrous, Trail's End #307, and intruder-buck scent.
•After two hours on stand without seeing any deer, I start to think I'd be warmer if I could just take a glass of ice water and pour it down my pants.
•Last week, after sitting quietly in a cafe for 10 minutes, I tried to rattle up a waiter using two spoons.
•When I happen to cross paths with my wife, Jane, from time to time, she reminds me that insanity is continuing to do the same thing but expecting different results.

Now that the season is nearly over, I am almost looking forward to the traditional promises to family and collection agencies to do better. I pledge to be a better husband, father, and provider to Jane and...I believe our baby's name is Emma.

Oh, right. And Jane says she's not a baby any more, she's almost 5. In fact, my wife is holding up a calendar at this very moment and indicating that Emma's birthday is in six days. And what she wants more than anything else is a 1997 Pink Splendor Barbie that retails for $900. Right now, I'm not in a position to haggle. Pink Splendor Barbie it is. (Note to self: Have bow appraised for cash value immediately.)

What should a man think about at such trying moments? Me, I go for deer every time. I find it soothing to meditate on the bucks that have survived the season and are even now walking around out there in the dark. Bucks whose antlers have already begun to loosen ever so slightly. In just four or five months, performing a trick whose power is undiminished by the millennia, those deer will start to grow new, larger ones. Almost before you know it, hunting season will be upon us again. And the corporate goal of Bill Heavey Freelance Enterprises Ltd. will once again be reduced to two words: gas money.

What a Hunter Should Not Do While Sharing a Duck Blind

fieldandstream-editor — Sun, 31 Oct 2004 19:00:00 -0500

Duck hunting is a curious enterprise. Most of the time, you're not alone. Instead, you're shoehorned into a tiny box of a blind, and you've already spent half the night with your buddy cursing in the garage over tangled decoy lines and apologizing to his wife for stepping on the cat's tail. Which woke the dog. Which woke the kids. Which means it's time to go. These partnerships evolve over time, like marriage. After a few years, you can complete your partner's thoughts. You bring an extra flashlight because he's so forgetful. He knows just how you like your coffee. If you start sharing the same tooth-brush, don't tell me. Duck hunting is different because your sidekick is usually 3 feet away—a witness to your screwups and a silent sufferer of your behavioral quirks. We're all guilty of a few minor blunders, but we'll all have a better time—and shoot more ducks—if we strive to avoid these most egregious tactical mistakes and social faux pas.

[1] FIDGETING. A big reason that hunters don't see ducks is that ducks see hunters. Why construct a decoy set designed to attract the attention of birds and then telegraph your presence with an ill-timed fidget? Shuffle around the blind, grab binoculars, dump out your pack in search of the jerky—while you're messing around with stuff, the wary birds are skirting your position. You don't have to be deer-stand still in the duck blind, but you'll kill more ducks by minimizing your movements.
[2] SHOOTING INTO THE SUN. Sometimes there's no choice, but on a cloudless day, an east-facing setup will force you to shoot into the glaring sun during the critical first half hour of legal light. A front-lit blind also stands out from its surroundings more than a blind set in the dark shadows. Some hunters argue that drawing a bead on birds silhouetted against the light in the eastern sky is easier, but you'll disagree after five minutes of frying your retinas once the sun has topped the horizon.
[3] FLAPPING YOUR TRAP A bird that has evolved to communicate with soft quacks, whistles, and chuckles can easily hear your boisterous jokes, and it can hear them at surprisingly long distances. Last year I hunted a large, open slough shared by only one other party several hundred yards away. The air was dead calm, and I was amazed at how clearly I could hear their normal conversation, not to mention their frequent bouts of laughter. After a couple of hours of slow-to-no action, they left—and suddenly the ducks appeared.
[4] SHOWING YOUR FACE. Or hands. Or blue jeans. With so much pressure on birds from the 49th parallel to the Gulf of Mexico, head-to-toe camouflage is critical for all but the earliest flights of the season. In a salt marsh or over open water, a shiny human face peeking over the blind is visible to ducks for a half mile or more. In timber, ducks are doubly wary, and anything that looks out of place will send puddlers into the stratosphere. Why didn't they commit after a couple of passes? Take a good look at yourself. Cover every inch, every time.
[5] FAILING TO ADJUST THE DEKES. Too many duck hunters toss out the decoys in the dark and then refuse to adjust the spread to changing weather conditions. Ducks must land into the wind. If the wind direction changes, so should your spread. Watch willing but skittish birds for hints that your decoys need fine-tuning: Ducks that constantly circle and circle, "wanting" in but never committing, or birds that consistently pitch into the dekes 10 yards out of range are telling you that your setup isn't in tune with the real thing.
[6] DOUBLING UP ON ONE BIRD. It's the mark of the rank amateur—and it's a mistake I still make far too often. You and your partners need to discuss a strategy to avoid pulling the trigger on the same duck. The gunner on the left might agree to take birds on the left of the flock or to shoot the trailing bird in a pair. Based on wind conditions and your decoy spread, figure out where the birds are most likely to fly, and then hand out the shooting assignments accordingly.
[7] HOGGING THE SWEET SPOT. You know it, and your buddies know it: One side of the blind is the King Daddy seat, the coveted upwind edge where the shooting is easy as the ducks drift in with wings spread a mile wide. Don't hog it. Seat placement can make the difference between fast shooting and hard feelings, especially when three or more gunners are in the blind. If there's an obvious hotspot in the blind, rotate the seating.
[8] SHOOTING TOO SOON. Timing is everything. Actually, the proper lead is everything, but that's another story; timing, however, is critical to knocking down birds. Nothing spoils the sight of a dozen quackers coming in on a string faster than the sight of your buddy going solo—and too early—with his 12-gauge pump. Take turns, draw straws, whatever—but make it clear who's calling the shot.
[9] GETTING THERE LATE. Nothing makes me consider taking up golf more than setting my alarm clock at half-past-insanity to claim a little piece of public marsh only to have some Rip van Winkle show up right at first shooting light, start throwing out decoys, and spoil it for everyone else. Show some respect: If you're hunting public land and can't arrive by at least a half hour before shooting light—an hour is better—then kindly by-pass spots where others have already set up.
[10] TWO-TIMING YOUR PARTNER. A duck-hunting buddy finally caves in to your ceaseless whining and takes you to his new honey hole. It's on the back side of public land, so of course you cross-your-heart never to set a wader boot on the pond without him. And you don't—at least until you line up another hunt with someone else. There is nothing illegal about such promiscuity, but it is patently immoral. I sinned thus years ago, and though I've been forgiven (I think), my disloyalty has never been forgotten.