Older, and Tireder

No matter how cold it is, a winter setting on the marsh at sunrise is a special time for a duck hunter.

Nothin like duck huntin...In the old days, ducks seemed to be easier to fool, and they flew slower.

When it is cold, deer have to move more, because to keep up their metabolism, they must eat more... Good news for December deer hunters.
A few days ago, I was out on the marsh at daylight hunting ducks, all alone at sunrise. At five in the morning, I get to thinking I never ever want to hunt ducks again, because I get out of bed a little stiffer than ever before, a little tireder (tireder is a word for hunters only) and a little less mad at ducks than I used to be. Motoring across a lake in the moonlight, creating a wind-chill on your face that is enough to cause frostbite, you begin to see why the old timers you remember from boyhood got to a point where they would rather fish than hunt.

But in that half-hour stretch before sunrise, when it is still and cold and the ducks are flying, you feel quite a bit better about life than you do at five a.m. And it was there in the marsh at sunrise that I saw something I have seen a few times before, but had forgotten. To my west, a big full white moon was settling toward the horizon in a sky becoming bluer by the moment. To the east, the sun was rising, looking like a giant orange through the morning fog over the water.

About 7:30 a.m. I stood facing north, and stretched both arms straight out beside me, watching the moon at the end of my fingertips of my left hand, and the sun at the fingertips of my right hand, exactly at opposite ends of the earth, nearly the same size, and exactly the same distance above the horizon. I thought at that time, how small and insignificant I am. But I didn’t think about it long, because three mallards came swinging around on cupped wings, so beautiful they appeared like something an artist might paint. They settled at the edge of my decoys and there I was with both arms spread out like an eagle in flight, with my shotgun leaning against an old dead snag.

Sometimes you feel small and insignificant, and sometimes you just feel like a really dumb duck-hunter.

Twenty-five years ago, when I would have jumped out of bed at 5 a.m. raring to go, I would have also dumped a couple of those mallards when they took to flight.

This past week, with the moon watching from one side and the sun from the other, I shot twice and missed. I blame a lot of it on a bulky hunting coat, and my feet being stuck in the mud and ducks that are faster today than they once were. But I know the truth… there have been too many sunrises and too many marshes. I am just getting too old to be a good duck hunter. But I can call ducks better than ever, and I can afford to buy shells now, more than I ever could before, and I never ever appreciated the beauty of God’s handiwork as I do now. And I never loved the outdoors more for what it is, without worrying about limits or shooting percentages. However many days on the marsh I have left, however many mallards I bring home from future hunts, I have no complaints. Standing there between the sun and the moon, I felt blessed.

A pair of Canada geese swung too close that morning, and I will have a Christmas goose to eat. I got another one a few days before. But duck hunting has been difficult. Mallards did not work well this past week, even though there are more of them this year than I have seen in a while, and water conditions, while poor compared to twenty-five years ago, are better than they have been in recent years. I have confidence that there will be better days before the season ends.

The trouble is, the real deer season begins this weekend, (the season for grizzled old outdoorsmen like me)… the muzzle-loader season. From the 17th to the 27th, a handful of us who like to use old historic firearms get to hunt deer with muzzle-loading rifles, and because it is harder to do, and your chances for success much lower because of the muzzle-loaders limitations, there won’t be many hunters out there. The ones who are there in the woods with a smoke-pole, as muzzle-loaders are often called, are a different breed of hunter. You are required to wear blaze orange by the rule-makers in Jefferson City, but most of us just remove and stow the unsightly garb when we get into the deep woods. Blaze orange doesn’t go with the ambience of muzzle-loader hunting.

I like to hunt deer by walking against the wind, slowly and quietly, and it’s something I can do with a muzzle-loader. Where I will hunt, in the middle of the week there will be no other hunters at all, and it is the only time of the year you can actually stalk and hunt whitetails all alone. That is a nice feeling.

You get only one shot with the muzzle-loader, as reloading takes a couple of minutes for most of us. Most of us use Hawken rifles of 50 or 54 caliber, and the black powder charge which propels that heavy slug is poured down the barrel before the slug, then fired with a percussion cap, much like the early pioneers used. The new in-line muzzle-loaders came along for those would-be-er’s and greenhorns who wanted an easy way to do it, but they should never have been allowed in this season, set aside for Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett types born 200 years too late.

Muzzle-loader hunting requires that you wash your rifle and oil it after each day that you fire it, because the old-time black powder is so corrosive it will rust your barrel and clog up the primer seat. Truthfully, it is more trouble than it is worth, so if you aren’t already one of us, I suggest you just keep hunting the modern way. Another thing, it is much too cold for most folks during this December season and I don’t figure you would like it much if you aren’t a grizzled old outdoorsman.

Us grizzled old outdoorsmen know that deer which are so active before the regular deer season in November become harder to find now, seeking heavy cover and moving more at night. But if there is some tracking snow and cold weather, a muzzle-loader hunter might find a nice fat buck or two left, and the cold weather makes deer move more to find more food which cold weather makes necessary. I’ll let you know if I have any unusual adventures during this last deer season of the year, when I start feeling like ol’ Davy is out there with me, looking over my shoulder.

Doggone if I don’t wish I had a coonskin cap and a leather coat. I also wish I wasn’t gonna have to drag that deer as far as I am going to have to drag him, once I drop him with that one shot! Davy and Daniel had a horse, and I don’t.

Write to me at Box 22, Bolivar, Mo. 65613 or e-mail me at lightninridge@windstream.net My website is www.larrydablemontoutdoors@windstream.net