The Seagull That Nearly Bought the Farm (10/31/10 Duck Hunt)

It was cold this morning when Eric and I got out of the truck.  It was also raining.  We had a long walk ahead of us, so on went the waders and off we went.  We worked our way over the railroad tracks, down the cut-through, past the ponds, into the bay and on to the point of the Columbia River and Snake River confluence we had decided on the day before.  After a half hour of wading though knee deep water, we had arrived.  We set about the task of deploying our small army of decoys.  While throwing them into place we had many variations of conversations, including the changing weather conditions.  The rain was starting to let up.  We finally reached the bottom of our decoy bags and Eric put up his small tarp for us to sit under until the rain was completely gone.  Finally, the rain left and heavy wind set in.  Shooting time had arrived.  We sat patiently watching singles zig and zag but none would lend their ears to our pleading calls.  I broke the ice at 8:05 by taking a fat mallard drake that dropped in about 15 yards in front of me.  Soon after that, Eric shot another duck of some sort.  The high winds and incredibly long shot made his impossible to retrieve.  All was quiet until 9:20 when Eric managed to pull down a mallard hen.  On the way back from his retrieve, Eric froze.  I knew the body language.  A duck was overhead.  Locked up on our decoys was an inbound pintail drake.  Eric's first shot missed.  My first shot connected and the bird started to come down.  I watched the bird's long neck recoil into the shape of an "S" when Eric shot again.  This bird was not going to get away.  It fell into the water 30 feet from where Eric had froze in place.  Eric picked the drake up and returned to the blind.  We sat in place watching birds juking our decoys and paying no mind to our calls.  The time went quickly, however.  We even had time for Eric to play a prank on me, which was followed by five minutes of laughter by us both.  As I was texting the kids to see how their morning was going, Eric got my attention and pointed over my left shoulder.  I grabbed my Benelli, swung it around and punched the safety off only to see a seagull at the end of my barrel.  Admittedly, Eric's laughter started before mine.  After the laughter subsided, we waited some more.  We heard a distinctive whistle behind us.  We instinctively swung our heads and saw five mallard drakes looking very interested our decoy spread.  We hit the calls.  The birds responded.  We worked the mallards for three more turns.  Finally they cupped their wings and dropped in from the left.  We both stood.  We both shot.  When the smoke cleared three big greenheads lay dead in the water.  Our final birds of the day.  A great day.  A fulfilling day.  A great to be an optimist.