Fall and Football

It’s Friday, and I am late getting out of town for another hunting trip. As I am fleeing the busy life in St. Paul I drive past St. Thomas University and see the stadium lights lit up. The purple and gold fans are lined up outside at the ticket booth for another Cretin-Derham Hall home game.
Yes, I was a Raider, or I should say I am still a Raider. I also have a State Championship football medal on my wall to prove it. For you history buffs, I got the medal my senior year, which happened to be the last time Cretin-Derham Hall won the State Championship, so you can figure out how old I am if you do the math.
Nothing signals the coming of the fall like the shortening of the days and football training camp. I cannot tell you how many times I have had late checkouts from hotel rooms in the Dakotas to watch the end of a Viking game. Sunday afternoons in that part of the country are bittersweet.
There is nothing like snoozing between plays on Saturday afternoon during a good college football game. With birds properly cleaned and on ice, college football is a great half time for hunters before scouting for more flights. Unless of course all you have to do the next morning is follow a bird dog into a fresh CRP field for rooster pheasants. If that is the case, college football is the perfect end to a morning, and an excellent break before dinner.
They say that Phil Robertson, the Duck Commander himself, was a heck of a quarterback. In fact, he started for Louisiana State University in front of a little known quarterback named Terry Bradshaw. It is also said that Phil Robertson would often show up for home football games, smelling like a slough with duck feathers stuck to parts of his clothing. Phil Robertson is one guy that seems to have his priorities right.
I was a varsity football player at Cretin-Derham Hall, during my junior and senior years of high school. I was one of the few kids that frequently missed Saturday morning practices. Those falls I had a lot of late night and early morning drives with my father to duck camp. There is a Highway Rest Stop on Interstate 94, just south of Fergus Falls, where my dad and I would frequently stop on some of those mornings. At the Rest Stop, we would put on waders before meeting the other members of our hunting party in the marsh.
At that time, the hardest thing for me to do was walk freshly showered into the coach’s office after a Friday night game, and ask to miss Saturday practice. I was always afraid that my coach would say no. Now Rich Kallock’s street fighting days had long been over, and the notoriously famous high school coach was an approachable guy. After the chuckles from the assistant coaches had subsided he would look me dead in the eye.
“Now, if you are going to miss practice, just make sure you shoot at least one duck. Alright?” He would tell me. I would reply with, “Yes sir.” Then leave before he had a chance to change his mind. None of the other players ever said anything to me about missing practice, and I doubt they even noticed.
Rich Kallock retired as the Cretin-Derham Hall head football coach a few years ago. He was a great man and I will always treasure those mornings he let me play hooky from practice. I have always wondered if he was a duck hunter. It doesn’t matter now whether he was or not. In my mind he must have spent the falls of his youth crouched in cattails with a wet retriever, scanning the horizon for ducks.
As for getting my one duck, you can bet the farm I harvested at least one bird on those Saturday mornings. Sunday mornings however were a different story.

Hunting Solo

Hunting ducks by oneself presents a few problems for the hunter. For starters, you can only look one direction. Therefore you either do not see some of the birds or you see them when they are flying away. A solo hunter must also place all of the decoys out and pick them up. There are no other shooters, and no excuses. Of course there are safety concerns when hunting alone too.
I have both learned a lot and grown a lot through hunting by myself. It really makes one realize who they are as a human and hunter.
It took me many years before I ever placed out decoys alone. The first few trips I made were very humbling experiences. I realized there were no other shooters with backup shots. Hunting has always been a social event for me. Experiencing life with others is one of the things that keeps us outdoors.
At least once a year I like to hunt by myself, to prove to me that I can do it. Saturday Oct. 7th, it was just the puppy Chet and I at the duck shack. I figured there would not be a better time for the puppy at seven months, to have his first duck hunt. Just the dog and I with no big distractions for Chet’s short attention span.
Shortly after legal shooting time I was getting buzzed by ducks from every direction except for where I was looking. I wanted the first duck I shot over Chet to be close so I had also passed on a few long shots.
Just when I thought things were not looking good a pair of ring-necked ducks swung the point low over the decoys. I dropped one with a single shot. Chet did not see the bird fall so I walked him into the shallow water. I made the pup sit and stay, and then I throw a rock from my pocket near the bird.
Chet took off like a champ after being released with the fetch command. This is perfect, I thought to myself until the duck woke up just as the pup reached him. The ring-necked duck took one look at the dog then quickly dove under water. At that point I swear Chet jumped completely out of the shallow water.
I saw the duck rise above the surface of the water about twenty yards away and I quickly dispatched it. Chet swam out to the bird but he did not pick it up. Great I thought to myself, I ruined the dog.
I retrieved the duck and Chet and I took or post in the weeds. It didn’t take long before a drake mallard came into the decoys cupped up. After two shots from the Berretta the drake was lying on his back in the water.
Chet is well steadied for just being a pup; he once again followed me into the water to retrieve the duck. Again Chet swam to the duck, but he would not pick it up. I looked into my crystal ball and saw that Chet’s future of duck hunting was not looking very bright.
The third and final duck of the morning was a wood duck. After three shots I winged it into the tall grass along the shore of lake I was hunting. Once again Chet and I left our post. The pup followed me to the place where I had marked the bird down.
I had been searching for the bird for about ten minutes and it was not looking good. I was just about to give up when Chet got birdie. Chet found the duck, he did not pick it up, but he totally redeemed himself by pointing it. I was glad to have found the bird and glad that Chet had sniffed it out.
Chet and I picked up the decoys shortly after that. I had shot at three birds and harvested all three of them. I was satisfied that I could hunt by myself and wanted to end the hunt before I broke my streak. I also did not want to hunt Chet too long the first time.
I drove into a small town and had a big breakfast. The fall colors were spectacular. That afternoon I attached a duck wing to Chet’s bumper. I tossed it a few times and he retrieved it with no problems. It was a perfect end to a perfect morning, one spent alone with a dog in the marsh.