While I didn’t get to go hunting at all when I was growing up, I always had a fascination with it. When I was 10 years old I began to develop an obsession with the outdoors. I couldn’t wait until Saturday mornings when I could wake up at 6 AM to watch hunting TV shows on ESPN. Unfortunately, this was as far as I was able to go. Although my Dad grew up hunting, when my sister and I were born he prioritized spending time as a family instead of taking me out into the field. Because of this, I don’t have any cool hunting stories about time spent in the blind as a little kid.
One particularly memorable hunt involved no birds shot and no decoys used. This was my first full season, when we hunted out of the pallet blind in 2015. Marcus showed up after school at the marsh, proudly sporting an entire bag full of homemade coot decoys. Jon and I weren’t as impressed, however, and neither of us wanted to carry the coot decoys. While there was one bag of regular decoys, Marcus understandably wasn’t going to carry any decoys if we didn’t either.
Since we were all too prideful and stubborn to carry some dekes, but also didn’t want to go home, we ended up walking out to the marsh with only our guns and ammo. Needless to say, we spent a very long, sweaty afternoon in the marsh and shot nothing. While we were all pretty annoyed about it at the time, this is one of those hunts that we all can look back on and laugh about the good memories.
Although I got my start hunting pretty late in life, I didn’t waste any time gaining experience and making memories. My very first hunt of my life is also one of my most memorable. I didn’t have a hunting license, so I just came along as a spectator on this hunt. The day was December 20th, 2014, and I remember that very vividly due to the fact that it was my birthday. We woke up super early and drug our bucket seats out to a crude blind somebody had constructed out of sunflower stalks.
I remember being incredibly cold, as Marcus was “kind” enough to loan me a tiny pair of uninsulated hip waters. They didn’t do me very much good, however, as towards the end of the hunt my feet got stuck in the mud and I tripped forward, straight into the ice-cold water. I was able to catch myself by planting my hands in the mud and stand back up, but for some reason I must have pushed a little too hard, as I quickly fell straight backwards, fully submerged, into the marsh.
To this day I honestly have no idea why I fell in love with waterfowl hunting, as Marcus and Jon only shot a few ducks that day. I guess it’s never really been about just shooting piles of birds for us. My favorite things about duck hunting are the great times spent with family and friends in the marsh, and every now and then I get to have a good chuckle when somebody else takes an icy swim.
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