Dead Duck Walking

"John Kerry went duck hunting and he's doing that to fulfill his campaign pledge to hunt down the ducks and kill them wherever they are. Kerry did pretty well; he came back with four ducks and three Purple Hearts."
—David Letterman

“I went hunting with Dick Cheney and all I got was this bloody T-shirt.”
—T-shirt Slogan

This is not the title of a new movie. It is not about "shooting fish in a barrel" either. But hunting ducks can sometimes be just that easy....

I learned to shoot shotguns fairly young. I remember going to the Renton Gun Club to practice. Years later we joined the Boeing club. There we competed in “turkey shoots.” Five shooters, twenty-five shells – five from each position. The high score got a frozen turkey. I don’t think we ever won a turkey, but often we hit an average of eighteen. Twenty-one was usually the winner.

I still own the 16 gauge model 12 Winchester I used to shoot. Not that long ago I sold the re-loader and all of the dies. My brother had a 20 gauge. Shooting a 20 is harder than a 16 or a 12 gauge. The shot spread is smaller at the same distance from the barrel than from a 16 or 12 gauge. Hitting 18 “pigeons” with a 20 gauge is harder than hitting 18 with the larger gauges (16 or 12).

Geronimo was our hunting lab. I have several stories I can do on this dog. But, today’s story is about one specific duck hunting trip.

We were hunting in the public pot holes north of George, Washington, and southwest of Ephrata. This trip we spent the night in the back of the pickup. We had a custom made height canopy from Bob’s of Issaquah. Dad had asked Bob to build it a little higher because he had to “stand up to put his pants on.”

The first day was beautiful – not a cloud in the sky and 20 degrees. Duck hunting is pretty crappy when there are no clouds. Ducks can fly way out of range. If we humped the brush, maybe Geronimo could scare up a pheasant or two, but ducks were pretty much out of the question. But wait! Is it a bird? No, it's de plane!

No – IT'S A DUCK! It had to be at least a hundred yards out, flying away from us over the frozen pond. Greg raised his gun, and I said “that’s way too far out.” BOOM! The duck crumpled in mid-air and fell into the reeds on the far side of the pond. I have to give my brother credit – it was “one helluva nice shot.”

Dad was over a hill or two and saw none of what happened next. Greg and I moved around the pond. We could hear the duck rustling in the reeds. I told my brother I would walk out on the ice and flush it toward him. “If it flies, then shoot.”

With the gracefulness of a clodhopper I moved through the reeds, flushing the bird toward Greg. BOOM!

“Did you get it?” I yelled. “I think so,” Greg replied.

When I got to Greg, I saw a twenty foot streak of blood across the ice – starting three feet from him. “What the hell happened?” “The duck came walking out…” (Scary - huh?)

I probably called my brother an idiot. It was not a nice thing to say, but I meant it. When a bird is walking toward you, simply grab it by the neck and wring it… I can’t fault my brother – he probably never learned that from dad.

I picked up the duck, and there was a "fifty-cent piece sized hole" right through the middle of the breast. You could see cleanly through it. There wouldn’t be enough meat to make de-feathering and cleaning the bird worth the time. I said “wait until dad sees this.” “Does he have to?” Greg said.

“Yup,” I said with a huge grin.

- Craig