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10 -- PORT PERRY STAR -- Wednesday, October 16, 1985 Duck hunting takes steely nerve and whole lot of real know how by Cathy Robb Its early. too early to be out of warm bed by most people's stan dards. and I'm up to my knees i what feels hke a black hole Already I've battled bullrushes burrs and about six inches of muck and it's not even 6 30 am My father's hip waders are about 14 sizes too big. my cameras foggec up and my nose 1s cold I've been duck hunting for all of I minutes and I'm impressed all t« heck My partner, a ruddy complexion ed GM'er who doesn't want his name in the paper, only snorts at the bags under my eyes and the pained look on my face But | refuse tc whine This, after all. 1s hunting, a Real Man's sport, the kind of thing that separates the men from the boys who eat quiche Like said, it feels hike we're in a " '} PB! od > | WY | wk The key to accurate aim is squeezing the trigger so gently even the marksman is surpris- We) Vo > | \ | J ~ The hunter takes aim at a flock of ducks while his dog waits patiently for the shot. Necessary equipment for duck hunting? Hip black hole. but we're only standing on the edge of a fair-to-middling size pond just north of Seagrave I've never been out hunting before. Because the thought of kill: ing anything other than cockroaches or my httle brother) disgusts me, the only shooting I do 1s with my camera My partner for the morning looks at things differently The half dozen ducks he will bag in the next few hours will be plucked. cleaned and stored in his freezer Nothing 1s wasted On the other hand, feeding his family isn't the main reason he hunts Admittedly, he enjoys it, pure and simple | find it hard to understand his love of killing animals and dur- ing the time we spend together we grapple with the question repeatedly ANC LI to your waist. He draws on what must be his tenth Player's Light of the morning. pushing back his cap with his free hand, the other one resting hightly on the barrel of his shotgun "It's something my old man did." he shrugs "When | was a kid me and my brother would tag along. Us and the dog Had my own gun, not a real huntin' gun. just a pea shooter that wouldn't kill a rat "It was real important that I did well I'd practise for hours out back with a tin can and when I finally bagged my first duck I was the pro- udest kid on the street. There wasn't a lot me and the old man did together, eh? But when we went huntin' it wasn't hke father or son or anything. It was more like we were pals." He's in his forties now, an old hand when it comes to hunting, whether it's ducks, bear or deer. His 3 { yt K Is \}. [4 JR \ ¢ WSEAS ed when the gun is finally fired. Jerking the gun IS a sure way of missing the intended target. \, N waders, unless you like being cold and wet up eye 1s steady. virtually unfailing, and he claims to have the best duck . blind in the area "You better not tell anybody about this," he warns The flock appeared suddenly in the distance, flying low and quick through the morning haze Sitting next to me, my partner blew into his call, and the birds whirled in a kaleidoscope of wings, and headed for the decoys. They came soaring in like small B-52's and when they were within range the hunter aim- ed carefully, squeezed the trigger. and shot. The retort echoed eerily across the marsh and two birds splashed down. The others disappeared in a chorus of noisy complaint. The hunter looked at me and grinned. "Not bad, eh?" LEARNED SKILL It all looked pretty easy to me. Call in the ducks, aim, fire. Send the dog in for the bodies. But as I soon learned, hunting, like anything, is a learned skill. It helps, first of all, to know what duck it is you want to hunt. [ always thought there were two kinds of ducks, white ones and the brown ones. Until my first hunting trip, I didn't know a puddle duck from a diver. And didn't really care either. But knowing your birds is impor- tant for many reasons, the first of which is purely a matter of legali- ty. Modern bag limits are specific in terms of how many ducks of each gender or species you may take in one day. so a hunter who shoots first and identifies later will often find himself violating the legal limit, even if unintentionally. Calling and decoy rigging tactics also vary somewhat according to species. The difference is most ob- vious between diving ducks and pud- dlers. Puddle ducks, also known as dabbling ducks. include the mallard. black duck. gadwall, pin- tail, baldpate wigeon. shoveler, tealand wood duck. These birds have legs that stem from near the center of the body, an evolutionary trait that enables them to walk easi- ly on land. It also explains in part why pud- dlers frequent smaller bodies of water like potholes, ponds, sloughs that aren't too far away from land Such places tend to be shallow and that satisfied another puddle duck quirk, that of surface feeding or dab- bling -- tithng forward and immer- sing their heads and necks under water while their tails bob on the surface Puddlers also feed out of water, either at pond"s edge or in grain fields These behavioral traits offer a clue to a puddler's daily patter. which usually includes a feeding stop at one place and a resting stop. in water, at another Each stop 1s visited twice daily. once in the mor ning and again toward evening Puddlers take off from the water in a straight leap, and they land by coming in fairly high and hehcopter ing down suddenly -- but usually after having circled first. a habit that has alerted them to many a poorly built blind or overeager hunter BUFFLEHEADS Puddlers also flv in comparative Iv small flocks (except during migrations. travelling in pairs and sextets. and sometimes in groups of a dozen or so but not much more This 1s one reason why smaller decoy spreads are effective on pud dle ducks. while the same spread might prove uninteresting to a flock of divers Diving ducks are basically the op- posite of everything said about pud- dlers They are ducks of large water and open expanses, such as seacoasts and large inland lakes Species include the scaup. (broad- bill or bluebill). canvasback. redhead, ringbill, goldeneve and bufflehead. Divers immerse completely when feeding, wriggling down to the bot- tom to grab weeds or to chase fish They travel in large flocks, usually of a dozen or more birds sometimes hundreds; thus decoy spreads tend to be much larger than those used for puddlers and instead of being set in coves and backwaters, they are placed off points and in open water. Divers come in low and fast, rare- ly circling a stool before landing. If they sight a hunter, they'll peel off to one side, rather than up and back like puddlers. And it doesn't really matter how much you know about ducks if you're a tense, lousy shot. MISTAKES The two most common mistakes are shooting too soon and not follow- ing through after the shot. The first is simply a matter of discipline. Don't shoot until the birds are well within range, and even then, don't shoot if they're puddlers that are circling for a better look. Sometimes such birds will circle two or three times before setting their wings for a landing. It takes patience and self- restraint to wgit them out, but in the end it will Mfean an easier, surer shot. Following through on the swing is easy to talk about but not always easy to implement in the field. The only real remedy is practise, or so I'm told, but this is better done on clay birds than on live ones in the field, which might easily be wound- ed and lost by a bad shot. SECRETS One secret of a good follow- through swing is to relax on the shot, to let the gun keep moving all the way to the end of your swing range Most hunters tighten up as they shoot, keeping their arms and shoulders stiff. Better, I've heard, to let your upper torso remain loose and flexible, and to overcompensate in leading a bird rather than to shoot behind it. Between listening to my newfound hunting partner, making a few phone calls and reading a few books. I've picked up a lot about hunting 1 never thought I'd know In Uxbridge. there's a special night class that teaches nothing but hunting basics and there's a girl in it right now from Port Perry, the first woman to ever sign up for the course I still find hunting shghtly bar baric. but after a few mornings on the marsh. listening to the cacophony of ducks. water lapping against the bullrushes, the quiet conversation of a friend and the wake-up snap of a gun. I've learn ed to understand why people hike to hunt so much ['ve been buttering up my editor to see if he'd send me on another hunting trip Mavbe a hon safari or something I hear the jungles warm this time of vear SHARP CANON TEXAS INSTRUMENTS CALCULATORS & Adding Machines PORT PERRY STAR 235 Queen Street 985-7383 TE -- a Tm. co yy aN yt ----