6th Prize
Hunting Journal with Weatherby Logo (100 awarded)
Gregory Heidbrier, Missouri
“I would love to take my friend Allan and my son, Zach, to Canada for a duck and goose hunt. I got to go once and the hunting was fantastic! My son is 17 and started waterfowl hunting with me last year. I would love to have him see what great waterfowl hunting is really like.
I met Allan about 12 years ago in a sunflower field just before sunrise. I was hunting alone and so was he. I happened to be sitting in the spot he had scouted the evening before. He was so disappointed at not being able to sit there that I offered to let him sit with me. I had started waterfowl hunting the year before and still didn’t know much about it except I loved it. Allan and I started talking and he had started waterfowl hunting the year before I did and fell in love with it. We were both surprised to find that what had hooked us both was the sound of the wind whistling through their wings. Nothing can compare to a flight of mallards coming out of the sun and hearing that wing roar as they dip over the decoys! Anyone that has ever heard it will never forget that sound! To both of us that is what waterfowl hunting is all about!
Allan and I had a great dove hunt that day and we exchanged phone numbers, agreeing to try waterfowl hunting together. I called Allan the week before the season opened, fully expecting him to say he couldn’t go but instead he was as eager as I was! We got lucky and drew in with a number two and Allan picked a wade and shoot area. As we walked in we could hear ducks chuckling like mad!! There was literally a thousand mallards set down on the water in a hole the size of maybe three acres with more trying to land. We put out our decoys, fully expecting all the ducks to take flight, instead more and more kept pouring in! By shooting time, there was at least 3,000 ducks sitting on the water and we couldn’t hear each talk they were so loud. We agreed to flush them into the air and as they took off we both emptied our shotguns, not hitting a single bird!! Three thousand ducks in the air and we both missed everyone of them! We both laughed at each other and waded back to the trees again. Within just a few minutes the sky was filled with mallards trying to land once more. We certainly did better after that. We limited out within 30 minutes, picked up our decoys and headed for breakfast!
Allan kept telling me, ‘Don’t ever expect to have that happen again!’ ‘I have never seen anything like that.’
When I got home I started cleaning my ducks and found one with a band!! Not knowing what to do with it, I called Allan and when I asked him about the procedure there was nothing but silence on the phone. Finally, Allan said, ‘I can’t believe this!’ ‘Not only do you have a day with more ducks than I have ever seen, you get one with a band!’
That made the whole experience even more special. So my dream hunt would be for Allan, my son, and myself to be able to re-create that experience!”