Hunting with my Grandfather in Nebraska

My very first waterfowl hunt was with my Grandpa in Nebraska when I was maybe 10 or 11 years old. I don’t remember a lot of the details of that hunt, but one thing always sticks with me. We were hunting from a pit blind, and I was tall enough to just barely peek over the edge. I wasn’t paying any attention, and a hen mallard came and landed on the water out in front of the decoys.

I couldn’t shoot down at the water from the pit blind, and so Grandpa was setting up a milk carton for me to stand on. By the time I finally got up and put the gun on the bird, it had swum away from the commotion and was out of range. Still, I was able to watch it for the next few minutes as it swam around and quacked on the water. We didn’t shoot anything that day, but that was a story I told with great excitement over the next few months.

Fast forward a few more years and I was back to Nebraska, and we were hunting teal out of a boat blind. I had been on a few hunts in Kansas by this point and had a small little duck call that I brought with me. A group of teal flew in and circled around the blind just outside of range. I gave a couple of quacks on my duck call. After a few passes they got close enough for a shot and I was able to knock one down. Looking back on it I have no idea how my duck calling didn’t scare those ducks away. But in the moment, I thought I called the ducks in all by myself and I was ecstatic!

That was the moment I was hooked on duck hunting. The good times in the blind, the beautiful evening sunset, plenty of shooting, and perhaps most importantly, the belief that I had called those ducks into the decoys. My Grandfather sent me home with a pair of waders and we stopped at Cabelas on the way home and Dad bought a dozen duck decoys. Next hunting season back in Kansas we started hunting public land and I haven’t looked back since.

Hunting with my Father

I owe a lot of my passion for waterfowl hunting to those Nebraska hunting trips with Grandpa, but if it weren’t for my Dad, I am almost certain I wouldn’t still be duck hunting. The early years of hunting in Kansas were tough. Long drives, early mornings, and we were lucky if we even saw a duck. We didn’t do a lot of hunting, as by this time sports and extracurricular activities took up a lot of time, but I am so thankful for all of those hunting trips with my Dad.

There are countless stories of duck hunts with Dad, but there are two, in particular, that stick out to me. The first mallard I ever shot happened on the way in-between fields while pheasant hunting. We just so happened to have a few steel shells rolling around the back of the pickup as we drove past a farm pond my Grandpa owned. I could hear the excitement in Dad’s voice when he said, “Marcus, look!” as there was a small group of ducks sitting on the pond. We kept driving up to the nearest tree row before getting out and loading up.

We spent about the next 15 minutes crawling through the ditch and sneaking up behind a stand of cattails before jumping the ducks up. They flushed right into the sun and I think it was pure luck that I was able to knock one down. We had shot a few teal before, but that was my first mallard. Even the hens are such a beautiful bird, and I was memorized by the iridescent blue on the wing.

The other story takes place during one of those early, slow duck hunts on public land. Dad had gone off mid-morning to take a look around while I stayed and hunted. Even just seeing a duck was cause for excitement back then, so when he came back to say he had seen some ducks landing back in the trees, I was ready to check it out. Today, I can look up that little pond on Google Maps and see it wasn’t too far off, but on that day it felt like I was exploring the wild west. There was absolutely no-one around as we trudged through the brush and trees to an unknown destination.

We finally stumbled across this little hole that had several good groups of ducks on it and I was able to get close enough to shoot one. I can’t say for certain but that may have been my first public land duck here in Kansas. We talked about that for the whole drive home and the week was filled with anticipation of heading back to that spot next weekend. The next weekend we set up there and I shot 3 ducks with plenty more opportunities. I truly couldn’t believe the success; 3 entire ducks, and all with only 1 trip!

Hunting with my Mother

There is one last special hunting memory that I want to share. 2015 was the first year we hunted from the teal opener to the end of the season. Dakota and I had built a blind on public land, but as teal season rolled around, I was the only one that could hunt the opener. In all honesty, I had no idea what to expect from an opening day, and I didn’t particularly want to go wade around out in the dark by myself for the first time.

With a little convincing, Mom decided she would join me. Now, this wasn’t the first hunt she had taken me on. We had been on Spring turkey hunts and even a duck hunt together, but this was the first time she had to put on waders and get out into the water. The walk out was a little slow, especially since I had to stumble around in the dark for a bit before finding the blind. But we were eventually able to get set up and settled in for the hunt.

I knew there were decent duck numbers from some afternoon scouting, but nothing had prepared me for the fast-paced shooting of a public land teal season opener. As shooting hours came around, all of a sudden everyone was shooting and the ducks were flying all over the place. I quickly knocked out a limit and we were picked up and back to the truck in less than an hour. That was my first ever limit of ducks, and it was such a neat hunt to share with my Mom.

Are We Crazy?

From the perspective of a non-hunter, waterfowl hunters are an interesting group of people. They see a hunter who wakes up in the middle of the night and goes out on the water in the middle of winter all for a measly duck, and they question why? It is tough to explain to someone who has never sat in a duck blind just how peaceful and exciting it can be, or how fondly we remember the stories of past hunts.

For me, duck hunting has never been about piling up limits of birds, or even shooting ducks for that matter. Sure, it’s great when it happens, but even if I had to go back to those early hunts where I was lucky to see a duck, I wouldn’t hesitate for a moment. “We don’t just hunt ducks, we chase memories!”