Duck hunting’s a love affair with nature

This was my newspaper column in 1995.

You may hear gunshots in the marsh this morning. Duck hunting opened 30 minutes before sunrise.

If things went according to plan, at 6 am this morning I was seated in a comfortable chair under overhanding alders, my natural blind alongside Hopkins Stream, a panorama of feathered friends – decoys – spread out in front of me. Here’s how the hunt will go.

As the sun touched the top of Bowen Hill to the east, black ducks settled into the marsh all around me. Can’t shoot them until next week, though, so I squint left and right, hoping for mallards or maybe some woodies.

The dog, a saw-grass Chesapeake Bay Retriever appropriately named Blake Hill Buddy, Blake for short, is settled down beside me, also scanning the horizon for ducks which he has dedicated his life to retrieving whenever his master is fortunate enough to knock one down.

We may see deer in the marsh, hear a cow moose calling somewhere in the woods behind us, witness a family of otter swim past hissing at our decoys, admire beaver as they busy themselves on the opposite shore, watch a heron fish for his breakfast, all the while straining our eyes to the sky, left and right, hoping to spot a flock of ducks winging our way.

Duck hunting is a specialty sport now-a-days. Less than 10,000 sportsmen hunt ducks in Maine today. It is an expensive sport. Hunting licenses are of course required as well as a state duck stamp ($2.50) and a federal stamp ($15).

Steel shot is expensive and the new more effective bismuth shot, just approved by federal authorities, costs even more.

Decoys don’t come cheap these days and camo clothing is also a necessity, enough for every type of weather. I’ve got camp tee-shirts, camo flannel shirts, a camo hooded sweat shirt, camo pants, and camo hats. No, I didn’t buy camo underwear.

Booths, foul weather gear (camo of course) and gloves complete the ensemble. I forked over big bucks this year for an LL Bean all-weather Gore-Tex insulated camo coat, good enough to keep me warm during the second season which goes into December locally and into January for sea ducks on the coast. Yes, I conceded that the coat cost more than my wife’s wedding dress, but I wear it more often, and you’ve got to factor in inflation over the last 16 years we’ve been married.

I am hoping we’ll still be married after the duck season, although I swing almost immediately into deer season and that’s enough to strain any marriage. When the first duck season ends on October 14, I’ll have just two weeks of scouting before the four weeks of the regular firearms season on deer begins, followed by (and I haven’t dared tell my wife about this yet), a newly established two-week muzzle-loading season on deer. Fortunately, that ends before Christmas.

If I take up muzzle-loading, I’ll need a new firearm, and that’s another story. Bad enough what this duck hunting does to the pocketbook.

Along with the other stuff, a canoe is necessary too, tote bags for all the gear and decoys, and duck calls. Then there is the four wheel drive vehicle, absolutely necessary. I’d never think of duck hunting without my Ford Explorer.

Ok. So what if I’ve invested about $35,000 so far, including this new camo folding chair in which I am comfortably ensconced as you read this column. It’s a great sport. Worth every penny.

Conservationists are born in duck blinds. We put the resource first, reducing bag limits whenever necessary, putting up millions of dollars through Ducks Unlimited and other organizations to purchase and manage waterfowl habitat, constructing and caring for duck houses spread through the marshlands of Maine.

This year we’ll bypass black ducks the first week so they can continue to rebuild their numbers. We’ll have no goose season at all, as those magnificent birds struggle to overcome a serious nesting problem in the UnGava Bay Region of Canada back in 1992.

But we’ll be out there, no matter what the weather, because we love ducks and duck hunting. What’s not to love?

Imagine yourself this morning, seated alongside me on Hopkins Stream. Hardwood trees sporting glorious red and yellow leaves reflect in the water and stand guard along both sides of the stream. The setting is gorgeous.

About 7 am we’ll enjoy Lin’s cranberry muffins and piping hot coffee. We may canoe up stream to see what we can see. There will be lots of wildlife. And plenty of peace and quiet too. We’ll converse with the dog.

And we’ll see a lot of ducks. Tonight, we’ll roast a couple if we are lucky today. Actually, we are lucky, regardless of whether we bagged our supper.

We’re in the marsh this morning. Perhaps you heard us.

George Smith

About George Smith

George stepped down at the end of 2010 after 18 years as the executive director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine to write full time. He writes a weekly editorial page column in the Kennebec Journal and Waterville Morning Sentinel, a weekly travel column in those same newspapers (with his wife Linda), monthly columns in The Maine Sportsman magazine, two outdoor news blogs (one on his website, georgesmithmaine.com, and one on the website of the Bangor Daily News), and special columns for many publications and newsletters. Islandport Press published a book of George's favorite columns, "A Life Lived Outdoors" in 2014. In 2014, George also won a Maine Press Association award for writing the state's bet sports blog. In 2016, Down East Books published George's book, Maine Sporting Camps, and Islandport Press published George and his wife Linda's travel book, Take It From ME, about their favorite Maine inns and restaurants.