Opening day of duck season might as well be my favorite holiday of the year. I look forward to it all year, and when it comes I am like a little kid on Christmas Eve. For those of you who do not hunt, let me try to explain it first in terms that you may be able to relate to. Imagine your favorite hobby, activity, or sport. Got it? Okay, now think about someone telling you that you are not allowed to participate in that particular activity for most of the year and think about how excited you would be the night before it was the first day of the year that you were able to do the thing that you love. Now, multiply how happy you would be by about 20 and there you have Landon Williams on opening day of duck season.
The day does not start that morning, however, it begins days, even weeks in advance. First you have to make sure you are sitting in the right spot. If you don’t scout your hole many times to make sure there will be ducks flying overhead opening morning, there is a chance you will not see one duck. If that were the case for me, I would be more upset than when I found out Santa was not real.
After you scout your hole, then the shopping process begins. Women tend to think that men don’t do any shopping and hate buying clothes; those women have never seen a man in the wader department of Bass Pro Shops. We have to buy waders, shells, most likely a new camo jacket (even though we have plenty others – duck season is just an excuse to add to the collection), face paint, hand warmers, and decoys. And if you have a great girlfriend like I do, you will wake up to a new duck call to celebrate opening day. Somehow, spending hundreds of dollars to try to shoot a duck seems like the most logical thing to do with your money when you are a duck hunter.
One of the drake Mallards that we shot on opening day this year
Once all of the shopping is done, it is time to get everything set up. If you are hunting from a boat, you have to make sure the blind on the boat is secure and sightless to the eyes of ducks. If you’re just hunting from a blind on the bank then you will set it up once you get there in the morning. Getting the decoys set up is also crucial. Although it is time consuming, it is what will bring the ducks to you. Once they see the spread you can only hope that they will turn, cup up, and get ready to land on the swamp where the decoys are. With the decoys in the bed of the truck, waders by the door, guns clean and ready, and calls on the chain in the blind bag, you are finally ready to go to bed before the biggest morning of the year – if you can even get a wink of sleep.
One of the drake Wood ducks that we shot that morning as well!
Usually I cannot sleep. I sit up on Google Earth looking at the hole we are going to, waiting for my 3am alarm to go off so I can jump out of bed and into my waders. It is the most exciting day of the year for me; I cannot get out of bed faster. Once we are on the road I know that I am that much closer to shooting at ducks as they fly across the sky. We get to the blind and anxious does not even begin to explain how I am feeling. By law, you have to wait until a specific time for it to be shooting light. We sit in the blind watching the sunrise and the fog lift off of the swamp and count down the seconds until it is officially shooting light. If you are lucky, there will be ducks flying right as the clock strikes shooting light, but honestly that almost never happens. Whether there are 3 ducks that fly by or 300 ducks, it is still a magical morning. Since the day I started hunting, I have never missed an opening day of duck season; nor do I plan to any time in the future.
Ducks and bucks 