12/3/11Jump-Shooting Sense & Sensibility

Jump-shooting. You find a creek, either tidal or freshwater. Ideally some ducks (and sometimes geese) loaf there between the early-morning and late-afternoon flights. You sneak in there the way you would hunting upland birds: lots of walking and some shooting and you make a couple hours of it then get back to work at your desk.

You ignore the comments from the decoying and calling guys when they razz you. You're that sort of a waterfowler too, but you (and your dog) like to make things happen.

Dogs make things happen, for sure. My English setter Radar, pictured here, has been doing it at my side for nearly a decade. We boys like to get out now and again, and sometimes alone, without the younger Luna girl, just 3, another setter.

I'm a dog guy and this sort of a thing, time afield making things happen, is common with us. When people ask me why I hunt "alone" so much (I've heard the "lone wolf" tag now and again), I pause, size 'em up, and say, smirking: "I won't mention that to Radar or Luna." Alone? Two is more than one. Anyway . . .

This morning my wife and daughter decided to walk Luna in town, so Radar & I cut out for a couple, crossing the Maine border into New Hampshire. It was sunny and sub-freezing when we woke up this morning and climbed to the high 30s later. Perfect. I figured we'd be alone.

Wrong.

While it seemed perfectly promising, hunting 400 acres of public "multiple-use" land has its challenges. Like the four twentysomethings who kept shadowing us everywhere we went: "Sorry we're scaring everything, tee-he," the leader offered, smiling . . . and I countered: "Aw, that's okay" to kids half my age, but not really meaning it.

We did find some ducks. Sort of. There were fresh divers (buffleheads) out in the middle of the nearby tidal river and some black ducks too, but none of them were in range, and the last thing they had in mind was, um, jumping (flushing) or being jumped or whatever it was we were trying to do there this morning. I should have more sense trying to jump ducks on a bright and sunny Saturday in early December, I guess.

We started back to the truck, about a half-mile walk. Two different upland bird hunters were working their dogs (it's a pheasant release spot), and I waved at one and talked briefly with the other. You see I'm not that grumpy, eh. I was cool with it all, then rounded the corner. The guy shouting on the cell phone, with his wife slowly moving ahead of him, about sealed the deal. I ignored them the way I would somebody talking loudly on a hand-held in an airport or on a city street.

Sorry, Radar. It was like golf, as Twain (Mark not Shania) said: a good walk spoiled.

"How'd you guys do?" my wife asked on our return.

I told her we'd had a good walk. Smiled. Grabbed some leftover pizza from the fridge . . .

Hunters, like anglers, are big-time fibbers, we all know that. Then Radar wagged his tail at me: a plea for pizza or kind of a high-five for having some time outdoors or both? You just never know with dogs . . .

I like that.

--Steve Hickoff