Duck hunting can be humbling experience

Real duck hunters are a special breed. They sit for hours in cold weather conditions waiting for a chance to have a flock of ducks sail into their spread of decoys.

At first light on a crisp November morning, you are knee-deep in leaf-strewn water, snuggling up one arm comfortably to the trunk of an old oak tree where you chose to make a makeshift blind.

You scan that early morning skyline of grey through the mist of vapors as you breathe. You are holding a shotgun in one hand and an old duck call in the other. The wood of both has the smooth finish that comes from countless hours of handling.

Neither the gun or handler would appear valuable to the casual onlooker, but value is a subjective thing, and to you they are beyond all calculation of worth. You know, objectively, these two tools aren't much if your measure is dollars and cents. Pawn shops are full of guns like the one you are holding. As for the duck call, there are six more in your shell box that sound as good as this one.

The old gun has been with you a long time, pre-dating the steel shot rigs that have in the past decades re-defined the perfect duck gun. That old pump has been with you on countless hunts; everything from rail to quail. Even Donald Trump couldn't afford to buy it.

As for the duck call, it was one you have carried since your high school days. It's a scarred, battered old thing, but it's a genuine antique mallard call, handmade back in the 50's by Tom Walker from a block of wood ---- and it isn't for sale either.

Legal shooting time has been approaching with the speed of stampeding snails. The sound of nearby gunfire brings you back to reality as you glance at your watch, which tells you that those shots were being pushed a little. There is still a few minutes to wait. Those last minutes masquerade as hours, but finally it is time.

The morning's first flight of workable mallards cross the now pink sky 150 yards east, intermittently visible through the trees. They are low-looking and your hail call turns them around. They beeline for your position, but at 75 yards, a barrage of gunfire from another group of hunters a quarter-mile away south flares them.

The same thing pretty much happens with the second flock of ducks, but the third groups breaks the magic 30-yard circle. You and your partner each take a green head.

It is a humbling thing to hold a freshly-slain duck in your hand. As you hold this one, you notice how the water beads on his feathers. You take a few seconds out of your hunt to think about where he has come from and what he has gone through on his way here.

If you're truly a duck hunter (as opposed to a killer of ducks) you feel a little sadness at this point. Nothing overwhelming, it just won't make you curse and tear your hair or throw your gun down and quit duck hunting.

You will just feel a twinge of regret, that's all. There can be no such thing as catch-and-release duck hunting. Like a trout or big bass, a wild duck is too valuable a creature to take just one time, but that's the way we have to do it. At this point you are grateful.

All of this, especially the last part is why you are a duck hunter.

Once having experienced the thrill of calling a passing flock of mallards into range, as the ducks look over the blind and decoys, you may be forever hooked.

The 2016 waterfowl season is forecast to be a good one, weather permitting. With a liberal duck season, hunters should find good duck and goose hunting sometime during that period. For several seasons earlier this decade, both the hunters and waterfowl declined, but now the birds have staged a comeback, and so have the number of hunters

The duck season gets started in the North Zone on Oct. 29 and runs through Dec. 27, followed by the Middle Zone on Nov. 5 through Jan. 3, with the South Zone starting on Nov. 24 and running through Jan. 22.

Water conditions play a big part in waterfowl hunting. Many places may be low, and so the big impoundments like Truman, Table Rock and Stockton may be better this season than usual.

For waterfowl hunting information, check out the Waterfowl Hunting Digest 2017-18, available where ever permits are purchased.