Skills

The temps are falling, and so is the rain. Fall weather is here...and to stay, hopefully. Swans are beginning to fill the sky, which is one of the eeriest and most joyful sounds to echo among the clouds.

Yesterday, I took the day off to do some layout hunting. I couldn't get my phone to upload pictures, but it was stupendous. The fog that we encountered on the way to the shooting grounds was thick like a milkshake. But it was salty. However, using my GPS, I was able to navigate the fog and open water. I learned how to use a GPS while in 4-H. It's interesting that 4-H'ers can often trace back personal and professional skills that are in their individual repertoires to 4-H. Through 4-H I also acquired my boating certification in Alabama. I know how to safely operate my boat...and how to light it up like a holiday tree when navigating in low and no lighting. I also learned how to properly anchor and equip my boat with the safest items around. Only two of us hunted, but I could have saved another party of an ill-prepared three had the situation arose. Two fire extinguishers, 5 lifejackets, two throw cushions and two anchorscomfort me, and should now comfort you, the reader, should I ever appear to save you and your helpless craft.

Once we set our decoys - which we instruct at 4-H Camp Canvasback - my hunting partner and I moored the layout boat, checked our radios, and waited until legal shooting time. The fog was so thick, that I could barely read my watch. Thank goodness it has an illuminating function. My companion motored into the milkshake, and I watched, and waited...and watched and waited. Thirty minutes into shooting time, the hidden sunrise finally shown enough water surface for trading fowl to spot the stool of hand painted decoys that I had prepared in the spring. My time in the boat was up, though, and I radioed my pal for a swap.

He got into the layout boat (the layout boat is a boat that is disguised to look like the surface of the water buy maintaining a low profile and flat gray color). Time in the layout boat is best spent watching the horizon, since that's about all there is to look at in a layout. Sitting on a fiberglass, pumpkinseed-shaped saucer in the middle of the Pamlico Sound can be unnerving to some. But it's peaceful to us who anticipate a churlish dawn. Woe is the person afraid of the terrible beauty of Mother Nature in a mood swing. Nevertheless, my pal was the first to expedite cold steel. He bagged a jet black scoter - a tough, heavy bird that prefers the nasty swells. We swapped out and I duplicated his success. Afterwards, the flurry became blurry. We took a heavy bag yesterday.

Roughly 5% of the American population pursues wild game. We do this at the pleasure of the other 95% of American humanity, yet, hunters are the original conservationist. They understand that to have quarry, it must be managed, loved, and yes - hunted. Teddy Roosevelt once said that if you want to save a species, you should make it huntable. I agree. There should be laws that limit takes and methods, though - and there are. Another way to save a species is to buy a duck stamp. Everyone should do it.

Enjoy the day...