I had a low-key Thanksgiving Day planned… and then Jim left me a message about duck hunting early Thursday morning. I nonchalantly told Katy it may be relaxing for her if I got up and went duck hunting and that way I wouldn’t be rustling around at 5:30 waking her up. Smooth approach huh? She rolled her eyes and said Tom, when do I ever stop you from going hunting?

I hurriedly packed and noticed that I was out of steel shot. Whew, still had time to go grab some. I couldn’t believe my ears but Jim said I wouldn’t even need to bring any waders. His son-in-law would throw out the decoys and there’d be dogs to retrieve our birds. Wow, I may have to hunt with Jim more often.

Turns up that the Thanksgiving morning duck hunt is a family/friend’s traditional event. There was a wide range of ages. Jim’s granddaughter Raeli is 8-years old on up to Bernie who is 87. Due to Jim being an old goose guide and there being 12 hunters crammed into a small area, he had a fast pre-game Safety meeting, which never hurts. Remember the old Winchester saying “all the pheasants ever bred cannot repay for one man dead”. He then scattered us our spots.

Ian and Jim were doing the calling. Ducks were zipping by at low altitudes at Mach V speeds, more resembling a fleeting blip on a video scene than a live bird. Legal shooting time finally arrived and we opened up. There were a ton of ducks in the air until the sun finally fully rose and even after that they were still active.

I always forget how fast the little speedster diving ducks flit in. Right after legal shooting time they swarmed like bumble bees. Against the dark woods in the background I’d barely see them before they sucked my cap off my head due to their back turbulence and were already in the next county before I got my gun up! There are no speed limits in the duck world. I’m sure quite a few ducks freeze to death every winter from getting their feathers sucked off by some speedster zipping through the duck neighborhood.

We were dropping quite a few ducks but Jim didn’t want to let the dog loose yet because it would have spooked our shooting and since the shooting was still fairly consistent until we knocked off. We were on a pond so it wasn’t like they were going to float off.

There were a few flocks of geese flying. Then two geese came over and then a group of 14 or so. How I missed them is beyond me. They were pretty much right over me.

One funny thing did occur. Someone in the laydown blinds to our left dropped a mallard. Bernie saw it cruising behind the brush in front of him and was zeroing in on it. Right when it came out in the open someone shot. It dropped like a meteorite and bounced hardly 8-paces from Bernie. If it had of hit him it would have knocked him out. I looked at Jim and said dang, I think in your next safety class you’d better cover not to drop dead ducks on your fellow hunters.

A couple of hours into the hunt Ian had slipped off and fired up a grill and then passed through feeding us hunters the best duck/goose sausage that I’ve ever tasted.

We hunted until about 10:30 and then let the dog go to work. I know whatever species of bird that you hunt, everyone thinks they have the hardest working dogs but waterfowl dogs have to have the hardest job don’t they? They have to jump in freezing cold water and track down in many cases ducking, swimming and diving ducks. And remember, ducks have webbed feet and dogs don’t. I’ve seen dogs trail down a wounded duck through flooded standing timber it seems at least 300 yards.

And all of the duck dogs that I’ve hunted over have been over the top gung-ho. If I could hire a crew of employees that loved their jobs as much as a duck dog loves his job, I could take on the world single handedly!

Well, time soon ran out and everyone had to get home to their Thanksgiving festivities. Great day. Thanks Jim.